THE   BIOGRAPHICAL   EDITION 

OF    THE    WORKS    OF 

ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 
WEIR  OF  HERMISTON 


HE  MISADVENTURES   OF  JOHN  NICHOLSON 
THE   STORY   OF   A   LIE 
THE   BODY-SNATCHER 


THE  BIOGRAPHICAL  EDITION 
OF  STEVENSON'S  WORKS 


NOVELS  AND  ROMANCES 
TREASURE  ISLAND 
PRINCE  OTTO 
KIDNAPPED 
THE  BLACK  ARROW 
THE  MASTER  OF  BALLANTRAE 
THE  WRONG  BOX 
THE  WRECKER 
DAVID  BALFOUR 
THE  EBB-TIDE 
WEIR  OF  HERMISTON 
ST.  IVES 

SHORTER  STORIES 
NEW  ARABIAN  NIGHTS 
THE  DYNAMITER 
THE  MERRY  MEN,  containing  DR.  JEKYLL 

AND  MR.  HYDE 
ISLAND  NIGHTS'  ENTERTAINMENTS 

ESSA  YS,  TRA  VELS  &»  SKETCHES 
AN  INLAND  VOYAGE 
TRAVELS  WITH  A  DONKEY 
VIRGINIfcuS  PUERISQUE 
FAMILIAR  STUDIES 
THE  AMATEUR  EMIGRANT,  containing  THK 

SILVERADO  SQUATTERS 
MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 
IN  THE  SOUTH  SEAS 
ACROSS  THE  PLAINS 
ESSAYS  OF  TRAVEL  AND  IN  THE  ART  OF 

WRITING 
LAY  MORALS  AND  OTHER  PAPERS 

POEMS 
COMPLETE  POEMS 


THE  LETTERS  OF  ROBERT  LOUIS 

STEVENSON.    4  wis. 
THE  LIFE  OF  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

ByGraham  Balfour.     Abridged  Edition  in    ^e  rel»  m* 

Thirty-one  volumes.     Sold  singly  or  in  sets 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York 


BIOGRAPHICAL    EDITION 


WEIR  OF  HERMISTON 


THE   MISADVENTURES  OF  JOHN 
NICHOLSON 

THE    STORY   OF  A    LIE 

THE    BODY-SNATCHER 


BY 

ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1920 


Copyright,  1896 
By  Stone  &  Kimball 

Copyright,  1896 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Son? 


"ENGLISH   \ 


hi* 


TO 
MY  WIFE 

I  saw  rain  falling  and  the  rainbow  drawn 
On  Lammermuir.     Hearkening  I  heard  again 
In  my  precipitous  city  beaten  bells 
Winnow  the  keen  sea  wind.     And  here  afar, 
Intent  on  my  own  race  and  place,  I  wrote. 

Take  thou  the  writing :  thine  it  is.     For  who 
Burnished  the  sword,  blew  on  the  drowsy  coal, 
Held  still  the  target  higher,  chary  of  praise 
And  prodigal  of  counsel  —  who  but  thou  ? 
So  now,  in  the  end,  if  this  the  least  be  good, 
If  any  deed  be  done,  if  any  fire 
Burn  in  the  imperfect  page,  the  praise  be  thine. 


445183 


INTRODUCTORY 

In  the  wild  end  of  a  moorland  parish,  far  out  of  the  sight 
of  any  house,  there  stands  a  cairn  among  the  heather,  and  a 
little  by  east  of  it,  in  the  going  down  of  the  braeside,  a  monu- 
ment with  some  verses  half  defaced.  It  was  here  that  Claver- 
house  shot  with  his  own  hand  the  Praying  Weaver  of  Balweary, 
and  the  chisel  of  Old  Mortality  has  clinked  on  that  lonely 
gravestone.  Public  and  domestic  history  have  thus  marked 
with  a  bloody  finger  this  hollow  among  the  hills;  and  since 
the  Cameronian  gave  his  life  there,  two  hundred  years  ago, 
in  a  glorious  folly,  and  without  comprehension  or  regret,  the 
silence  of  the  moss  has  been  broken  once  again  by  the  report 
of  firearms  and  the  cry  of  the  dying. 

The  Deil's  Hags  was  the  old  name.  But  the  place  is  now 
called  Francie's  Cairn.  For  a  while  it  was  told  that  Francie 
\valked.  Aggie  Hogg  met  him  in  the  gloaming  by  the  cairnside, 
and  he  spoke  to  her,  with  chattering  teeth,  so  that  his  words 
were  lost.  He  pursued  Rob  Todd  (if  anyone  could  have  be- 
lieved Robbie)  for  the  space  of  half  a  mile  with  pitiful  en» 
treaties.  But  the  age  is  one  of  incredulity ;  these  superstitious 
decorations  speedily  fell  off;  and  the  facts  of  the  story  itself, 
like  the  bones  of  a  giant  buried  there  and  half  dug  up,  sur- 
vived, naked  and  imperfect,  in  the  memory  of  the  scattered 
neighbours.  To  this  day,  of  winter  nights,  when  the  sleet  is 
on  the  window  and  the  cattle  are  quiet  in  the  byre,  there  will 
be  told  again,  amid  the  silence  of  the  young  and  the  additions 
and  corrections  of  the  old,  the  tale  of  the  Justice-Clerk  and 
of  his  son,  young  Hermiston,  that  vanished  from  men's  knowl- 
edge; of  the  two  Kirsties  and  the  Four  Black  Brothers  of 
the  Cauldstaneslap;  and  of  Frank  Innes,  "the  young  fool 
advocate,"  that  came  into  these  moorland  parts  to  find  his 
destiny. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Weir  of  Hermiston i 

Chapter 

I  Life  and  Death  of  Mrs.  Weir     .....  3 

II  Father  and  Son 22 

III  In  the  Matter  of  the  Hanging  of  Duncan 

Jopp 30 

IV  Opinion  of  the  Bench 50 

V  Winter  on  the  Moors  : 

I    At  Hermiston   . 62 

II    Kirstie 67 

III    A  Border  Family 71 

VI    A  Leaf  from  Christina's  Psalm-Book  ...  93 

VII    Enter  Mephistopheles 127 

VIII    A  Nocturnal  Visit 150 

IX    At  the  Weaver's  Stone 160 

Editorial  Note 169 

Glossary  of  Scottish  Words 181 

The  Misadventures  of  John  Nicholson.    .    .    .  185 
Chapter 

I    In  which  John  sows  the  Wind 187 

II  In  which  John  reaps  the  Whirlwind    .    .  195 

III  In  which  John  enjoys  the  Harvest  Home  202 

IV  The  Second  Sowing 210 

V    The  Prodigal's  Return 217 

VI  The  House  at  Murrayfield 226 


x  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

VII  A  Tragi-Comedy  in  a  Cab 242 

VIII    Singular  Instance  of  the  Utility  of  Pass- 

Keys 255 

IX    In  which  Mr.  Nicholson  accepts  the  Prin- 
ciple of  an  Allowance    ......  270 

The  Story  of  a  Lie 281 

Chapter 

I    Introduces  the  Admiral 283 

II    A  Letter  to  the  Papers 291 

III  In  the  Admiral's  Name 298 

IV  Esther  on  the  Filial  Relation    ....  308 
V    The  Prodigal  Father  makes  his  Debut  at 

Home 313 

VI    The    Prodigal    Father    goes    on    from 

Strength  to  Strength     322 

VII    The  Elopement 336 

VIII  Battle  Royal 349 

IX    In  which  the  Liberal  Editor  appears  as 

"Deus  ex  Machina" 361 

The  Body-Snatcher 367 


WEIR   OF  HERMISTON 


WEIR  OF  HERMISTON 

CHAPTER  I 

LIFE   AND   DEATH   OF   MRS.    WEIR 

THE  Lord  Justice-Clerk  was  a  stranger  in 
that  part  of  the  country;  but  his  lady 
wife  was  known  there  from  a  child,  as 
her  race  had  been  before  her.  The  old  "  riding 
Rutherfords  of  Hermiston,"  of  whom  she  was 
the  last  descendant,  had  been  famous  men  of  yore, 
ill  neighbours,  ill  subjects,  and  ill  husbands  to  their 
wives  though  not  their  properties.  Tales  of  them 
were  rife  for  twenty  miles  about;  and  their 
name  was  even  printed  in  the  page  of  our  Scots 
histories,  not  always  to  their  credit.  One  bit  the 
dust  at  Flodden ;  one  was  hanged  at  his  peel  door 
by  James  the  Fifth;  another  fell  dead  in  a  ca- 
rouse with  Tom  Dalzell;  while  a  fourth  (and  that 
was  Jean's  own  father)  died  presiding  at  a  Hell- 
Fire  Club,  of  which  he  was  the  founder.  There 
were  many  heads  shaken  in  Crossmichael  at  that 
judgment;  the  more  so  as  the  man  had  a  villainous 
reputation  among  high  and  low,  and  both  with  the 
godly  and  the  worldly.  At  that  very  hour  of  his 
demise,  he  had  ten  going  pleas  before  the  session, 
eight  of  them  oppressive.     And  the  same  doom 


4,     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

extended  even  to  his  agents;  his  grieve,  that  had 
been  his  right  hand  in  many  a  left-hand  business, 
being  cast  from  his  horse  one  night  and  drowned 
in  a  peat-hag  on  the  Kye  skairs ;  and  his  very  doer 
(although  lawyers  have  long  spoons)  surviving  him 
not  long,  and  dying  on  a  sudden  in  a  bloody  flux. 

In  all  these  generations,  while  a  male  Rutherford 
was  in  the  saddle  with  his  lads,  or  brawling  in  a 
change-house,  there  would  be  always  a  white- 
faced  wife  immured  at  home  in  the  old  peel  or  the 
later  mansion-house.  It  seemed  this  succession  of 
martyrs  bided  long,  but  took  their  vengeance  in  the 
end,  and  that  was  in  the  person  of  the  last  descend- 
ant, Jean.  She  bore  the  name  of  the  Rutherfords, 
but  she  was  the  daughter  of  their  trembling 
wives.  At  the  first  she  was  not  wholly  with- 
out charm.  Neighbours  recalled  in  her,  as  a  child, 
a  strain  of  elfin  wilfulness,  gentle  little  mutinies, 
sad  little  gaieties,  even  a  morning  gleam  of  beauty 
that  was  not  to  be  fulfilled.  She  withered  in  the 
growing,  and  (whether  it  was  the  sins  of  her 
sires  or  the  sorrows  of  her  mothers)  came  to  her 
maturity  depressed,  and,  as  it  were,  defaced;  no 
blood  of  life  in  her,  no  grasp  or  gaiety;  pious, 
anxious,  tender,  tearful,  and  incompetent. 

It  was  a  wonder  to  many  that  she  had  married 
—  seeming  so  wholly  of  the  stuff  that  makes  old 
maids.  But  chance  cast  her  in  the  path  of  Adam 
Weir,  then  the  new  Lord-Advocate,  a  recognised, 
risen  man,  the  conqueror  of  many  obstacles,  and 
thus  late  in  the  day  beginning  to  think  upon  a 
wife.    He  was  one  who  looked  rather  to  obedience 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON      5 

than  beauty,  yet  it  would  seem  he  was  struck  with 
her  at  the  first  look.  "  Wha  's  she?"  he  said, 
turning  to  his  host;  and,  when  he  had  been  told, 
"  Ay,"  says  he,  "  she  looks  menseful.     She  minds 

me ";  and  then,  after  a  pause  (which  some 

have  been  daring  enough  to  set  down  to  sentimen- 
tal recollections),  "Is  she  releegious?"  he  asked, 
and  was  shortly  after,  at  his  own  request,  presented. 
The  acquaintance,  which  it  seems  profane  to  call 
a  courtship,  was  pursued  with  Mr.  Weir's  accus- 
tomed industry,  and  was  long  a  legend,  or  rather  a 
source  of  legends,  in  the  Parliament  House.  He 
was  described  coming,  rosy  with  much  port,  into 
the*  drawing-room,  walking  direct  up  to  the  lady, 
and  assailing  her  with  pleasantries,  to  which  the 
embarrassed  fair  one  responded,  in  what  seemed 
a  kind  of  agony,  "  Eh,  Mr.  Weir!  "  or  "  O,  Mr. 
Weir !  "  or  "  Keep  me,  Mr.  Weir!  "  On  the  very 
eve  of  their  engagement  it  was  related  that  one 
had  drawn  near  to  the  tender  couple,  and  had 
overheard  the  lady  cry  out,  with  the  tones  of  one 
who  talked  for  the  sake  of  talking,  "  Keep  me,  Mr. 
Weir,  and  what  became  of  him  ?  "  and  the  pro- 
found accents  of  the  suitor's  reply,  "  Haangit, 
mem,  haangit."  The  motives  upon  either  side 
were  much  debated.  Mr.  Weir  must  have  sup- 
posed his  bride  to  be  somehow  suitable;  perhaps 
he  belonged  to  that  class  of  men  who  think  a  weak 
head  the  ornament  of  women  —  an  opinion  inva- 
riably punished  in  this  life.  Her  descent  and  her 
estate  were  beyond  question.  Her  wayfaring  an- 
cestors and  her  litigious  father  had  done  well  by 


6      WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

Jean.  There  was  ready  money  and  there  were 
broad  acres,  ready  to  fall  wholly  to  the  husband, 
to  lend  dignity  to  his  descendants,  and  to  himself 
a  title,  when  he  should  be  called  upon  the  Bench. 
On  the  side  of  Jean  there  was  perhaps  some  fasci- 
nation of  curiosity  as  to  this  unknown  male  animal 
that  approached  her  with  the  roughness  of  a 
ploughman  and  the  aplomb  of  an  advocate.  Being 
so  trenchantly  opposed  to  all  she  knew,  loved,  or 
understood,  he  may  well  have  seemed  to  her  the 
extreme,  if  scarcely  the  ideal,  of  his  sex.  And  be- 
sides, he  was  an  ill  man  to  refuse.  A  little  over 
forty  at  the  period  of  his  marriage,  he  looked 
already  older,  and  to  the  force  of  manhood  added 
the  senatorial  dignity  of  years;  it  was,  perhaps, 
with  an  unreverend  awe,  but  he  was  awful.  The 
Bench,  the  Bar,  and  the  most  experienced  and 
reluctant  witness,  bowed  to  his  authority  —  and 
why  not  Jeannie  Rutherford? 

The  heresy  about  foolish  women  is  always  pun- 
ished, I  have  said,  and  Lord  Hermiston  began 
to  pay  the  penalty  at  once.  His  house  in  George 
Square  was  wretchedly  ill-guided;  nothing  an- 
swerable to  the  expense  of  maintenance  but  the 
cellar,  which  was  his  own  private  care.  When 
things  went  wrong  at  dinner,  as  they  continually 
did,  my  lord  would  look  up  the  table  at  his  wife: 
"  I  think  these  broth  would  be  better  to  swim  in 
than  to  sup."  Or  else  to  the  butler :  "  Here, 
M'Killop,  awa'  wi'  this  Raadical  gigot  —  tak'  it  to 
the  French,  man,  and  bring  me  some  puddocks! 
It  seems  rather  a  sore  kind  of  a  business  that  I 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON      7 

should  be  all  day  in  Court  haanging  Raadicals, 
and  get  nawthing  to  my  denner."  Of  course  this 
was  but  a  manner  of  speaking,  and  he  had  never 
hanged  a  man  for  being  a  Radical  in  his  life;  the 
law,  of  which  he  was  the  faithful  minister,  direct- 
ing otherwise.  And  of  course  these  growls  were 
in  the  nature  of  pleasantry,  but  it  was  of  a  recon- 
dite sort ;  and  uttered  as  they  were  in  his  resound- 
ing voice,  and  commented  on  by  that  expression 
which  they  called  in  the  Parliament  House  "  Her- 
miston's  hanging  face"  —  they  struck  mere  dis- 
may into  the  wife.  She  sat  before  him  speechless 
and  fluttering;  at  each  dish,  as  at  a  fresh  ordeal, 
her  eye  hovered  toward  my  lord's  countenance 
and  fell  again;  if  he  but  ate  in  silence,  unspeak- 
able relief  was  her  portion;  if  there  were  com- 
plaint, the  world  was  darkened.  She  would  seek 
out  the  cook,  who  was  always  her  sister  in  the 
Lord.  "  O,  my  dear,  this  is  the  most  dreidful 
thing  that  my  lord  can  never  be  contented  in  his 
own  house !  "  she  would  begin ;  and  weep  and  pray 
with  the  cook ;  and  then  the  cook  would  pray  with 
Mrs.  Weir;  and  the  next  day's  meal  would  never 
be  a  penny  the  better  —  and  the  next  cook  (when 
she  came)  would  be  worse,  if  anything,  but  just  as 
pious.  It  was  often  wondered  that  Lord  Hermis- 
ton  bore  it  as  he  did;  indeed  he  was  a  stoical  old 
voluptuary,  contented  with  sound  wine  and  plenty 
of  it.  But  there  were  moments  when  he  over- 
flowed. Perhaps  half-a-dozen  times  in  the  history 
of  his  married  life  —  "  Here !  tak'  it  awa',  and 
bring  me  a  piece  bread  and  kebbuck ! "  he  had 


8      WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

exclaimed,  with  an  appalling  explosion  of  his  voice 
and  rare  gestures.  None  thought  to  dispute  or  to 
make  excuses;  the  service  was  arrested;  Mrs. 
Weir  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table  whimpering  with- 
out disguise;  and  his  lordship  opposite  munched 
his  bread  and  cheese  in  ostentatious  disregard. 
Once  only,  Mrs.  Weir  had  ventured  to  appeal.  He 
was  passing  her  chair  on  his  way  into  the  study. 

"  O,  Edom !  "  she  wailed,  in  a  voice  tragic  with 
tears,  and  reaching  out  to  him  both  hands,  in  one  of 
which  she  held  a  sopping  pocket-handkerchief. 

He  paused  and  looked  upon  her  with  a  face  of 
wrath,  into  which  there  stole,  as  he  looked,  a 
twinkle  of  humour. 

"  Noansense !  "  he  said.  "  You  and  your  noan- 
sense!  What  do  I  want  with  a  Christian  faim'ly? 
I  want  Christian  broth!  Get  me  a  lass  that 
can  plain  boil  a  potato,  if  she  was  a  whure 
off  the  streets."  And  with  these  words,  which 
echoed  in  her  tender  ears  like  blasphemy,  he  had 
passed  on  to  his  study  and  shut  the  door  behind 
him. 

Such  was  the  housewifery  in  George  Square. 
It  was  better  at  Hermiston,  where  Kirstie  Elliott, 
the  sister  of  a  neighbouring  bonnet-laird,  and  an 
eighteenth  cousin  of  the  lady's,  bore  the  charge  of 
all,  and  kept  a  trim  house  and  a  good  country  table. 
Kirstie  was  a  woman  in  a  thousand,  clean,  capable, 
notable;  once  a  moorland  Helen,  and  still  comely 
as  a  blood  horse  and  healthy  as  the  hill  wind. 
High  in  flesh  and  voice  and  colour,  she  ran  the 
house  with  her  whole  intemperate  soul,  in  a  bustle, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     9 

not  without  buffets.  Scarce  more  pious  than  de- 
cency in  those  days  required,  she  was  the  cause  of 
many  an  anxious  thought  and  many  a  tearful 
prayer  to  Mrs.  Weir.  Housekeeper  and  mistress 
renewed  the  parts  of  Martha  and  Mary;  and 
though  with  a  pricking  conscience,  Mary  reposed 
on  Martha's  strength  as  on  a  rock.  Even  Lord 
Hermiston  held  Kirstie  in  a  particular  regard. 
There  were  few  with  whom  he  unbent  so  gladly, 
few  whom  he  favoured  with  so  many  pleasantries. 
"  Kirstie  and  me  maun  have  our  joke,"  he  would 
declare,  in  high  good-humour,  as  he  buttered  Kir- 
stie's  scones  and  she  waited  at  table.  A  man  who 
had  no  need  either  of  love  or  of  popularity,  a  keen 
reader  of  men  and  of  events,  there  was  perhaps 
only  one  truth  for  which  he  was  quite  unprepared : 
he  would  have  been  quite  unprepared  to  learn  that 
Kirstie  hated  him.  He  thought  maid  and  master 
were  well  matched;  hard,  handy,  healthy,  broad 
Scots  folk,  without  a  hair  of  nonsense  to  the  pair  of 
them.  And  the  fact  was  that  she  made  a  goddess 
and  an  only  child  of  the  effete  and  tearful  lady; 
and  even  as  she  waited  at  table  her  hands  would 
sometimes  itch  for  my  lord's  ears. 

Thus,  at  least,  when  the  family  were  at  Hermis- 
ton, not  only  my  lord,  but  Mrs.  Weir  too,  enjoyed 
a  holiday.  Free  from  the  dreadful  looking-for  of 
the  miscarried  dinner,  she  would  mind  her  seam, 
read  her  piety  books,  and  take  her  walk  (which  was 
my  lord's  orders),  sometimes  by  herself,  sometimes 
with  Archie,  the  only  child  of  that  scarce  natural 
union.    The  child  was  her  next  bond  to  life.    Her 


io    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

frosted  sentiment  bloomed  again,  she  breathed 
deep  of  life,  she  let  loose  her  heart,  in  that  society. 
The  miracle  of  her  motherhood  was  ever  new  to 
her.  The  sight  of  the  little  man  at  her  skirt  intoxi- 
cated her  with  the  sense  of  power,  and  froze  her 
with  the  consciousness  of  her  responsibility.  She 
looked  forward,  and,  seeing  him  in  fancy  grow  up 
and  play  his  diverse  part  on  the  world's  theatre, 
caught  in  her  breath  and  lifted  up  her  courage 
with  a  lively  effort.  It  was  only  with  the  child 
that  she  forgot  herself  and  was  at  moments 
natural;  yet  it  was  only  with  the  child  that  she 
had  conceived  and  managed  to  pursue  a  scheme  of 
conduct.  Archie  was  to  be  a  great  man  and  a 
good;  a  minister  if  possible,  a  saint  for  certain. 
She  tried  to  engage  his  mind  upon  her  favour- 
ite books,  Rutherford's  Letters,  Scougal's  Grace 
Abounding,  and  the  like.  It  was  a  common  prac- 
tice of  hers  (and  strange  to  remember  now)  that 
she  would  carry  the  child  to  the  Deil's  Hags, 
sit  with  him  on  the  Praying  Weaver's  stone  and 
talk  of  the  Covenanters  till  their  tears  ran  down. 
Her  view  of  history  was  wholly  artless,  a  design 
in  snow  and  ink;  upon  the  one  side,  tender  inno- 
cents with  psalms  upon  their  lips;  upon  the  other, 
the  persecutors,  booted,  bloody-minded,  flushed 
with  wine;  a  suffering  Christ,  a  raging  Beelze- 
bub. Persecutor  was  a  word  that  knocked  upon 
the  woman's  heart;  it  was  her  highest  thought  of 
wickedness,  and  the  mark  of  it  was  on  her  house. 
Her  great-great-grandfather  had  drawn  the  sword 
against  the  Lord's  anointed  on  the  field  of  Rullion 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     u 

Green,  and  breathed  his  last  (tradition  said)  in  the 
arms  of  the  detestable  Dalzell.  Nor  could  she  blind 
herself  to  this,  that  had  they  lived  in  these  old  days, 
Hermiston  himself  would  have  been  numbered 
alongside  of  Bloody  MacKenzie  and  the  politic 
Lauderdale  and  Rothes,  in  the  band  of  God's  im- 
mediate enemies.  The  sense  of  this  moved  her 
to  the  more  fervour ;  she  had  a  voice  for  that  name 
of  persecutor  that  thrilled  in  the  child's  marrow; 
and  when  one  day  the  mob  hooted  and  hissed  them 
all  in  my  lord's  travelling-carriage,  and  cried, 
"  Down  with  the  persecutor !  down  with  Hanging 
Hermiston !  "  and  mamma  covered  her  eyes  and 
wept,  and  papa  let  down  the  glass  and  looked  out 
upon  the  rabble  with  his  droll  formidable  face,  bit- 
ter and  smiling,  as  they  said  he  sometimes  looked 
when  he  gave  sentence,  Archie  was  for  the  moment 
too  much  amazed  to  be  alarmed,  but  he  had  scarce 
got  his  mother  by  herself  before  his  shrill  voice  was 
raised  demanding  an  explanation;  why  had  they 
called  papa  a  persecutor? 

"  Keep  me,  my  precious ! "  she  exclaimed. 
"  Keep  me,  my  dear !  this  is  poleetical.  Ye  must 
never  ask  me  anything  poleetical,  Erchie.  Your 
faither  is  a  great  man,  my  dear,  and  it 's  no  for 
me  or  you  to  be  judging  him.  It  would  be  telling 
us  all  if  we  behaved  ourselves  in  our  several  sta- 
tions the  way  your  faither  does  in  his  high  office; 
and  let  me  hear  no  more  of  any  such  disrespectful 
and  undutiful  questions !  No  that  you  meant  to  be 
undutiful,  my  lamb ;  your  mother  kens  that  —  she 
kens  it  well,  dearie !  "  and  so  slid  off  to  safer  topics, 


12     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

and  left  on  the  mind  of  the  child  an  obscure  but 
ineradicable  sense  of  something  wrong. 

Mrs.  Weir's  philosophy  of  life  was  summed  in 
one  expression  —  tenderness.     In  her  view  of  the 
universe,  which  was  all  lighted  up  with  a  glow  out 
of  the  doors  of  hell,  good  people  must  walk  there 
in  a  kind  of  ecstasy  of  tenderness.     The  beasts 
and  plants  had  no  souls;    they  were  here  but  for 
a  day,  and  let  their  day  pass  gently!    And  as  for 
the  immortal  men,  on  what  black,  downward  path 
were  many  of  them  wending,  and  to  what  a  horror 
of  an   immortality !      "  Are   not   two   sparrows," 
"  Whosoever  shall  smite  thee,"  "  God  sendeth  His 
rain,"  "  Judge  not  that  ye  be  not  judged  "  —  these 
texts  made  her  body  of  divinity;  she  put  them  on 
in  the  morning  with  her  clothes  and  lay  down  to 
sleep  with  them  at  night;   they  haunted  her  like  a 
favourite  air,  they  clung  about  her  like  a  favourite 
perfume.      Their   minister    was    a    marrowy    ex- 
pounder of  the  law,  and  my  lord  sat  under  him 
with  relish ;  but  Mrs.  Weir  respected  him  from  far 
off;  heard  him  (like  the  cannon  of  a  beleaguered 
city)   usefully  booming  outside  on  the  dogmatic 
ramparts ;  and  meanwhile,  within  and  out  of  shot, 
dwelt  in  her  private  garden,  which  she  watered 
with  grateful  tears.    It  seems  strange  to  say  of  this 
colourless  and  ineffectual  woman,  but  she  was  a 
true  enthusiast,  and  might  have  made  the  sunshine 
and  the  glory  of  a  cloister.     Perhaps  none  but 
Archie  knew  she  could  be  eloquent;   perhaps  none 
but  he  had  seen  her  —  her  colour  raised,  her  hands 
clasped  or  quivering  —  glow  with  gentle  ardour. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     13 

There  is  a  corner  of  the  policy  of  Hermiston,  where 
you  come  suddenly  in  view  of  the  summit  of  Black 
Fell,  sometimes  like  the  mere  grass  top  of  a  hill, 
sometimes  (and  this  is  her  own  expression)  like 
a  precious  jewel  in  the  heavens.  On  such  days, 
upon  the  sudden  view  of  it,  her  hand  would  tighten 
on  the  child's  fingers,  her  voice  rise  like  a  song. 
"I  to  the  hills!"  she  would  repeat.  "And  O, 
Erchie,  are  nae  these  like  the  hills  of  Naphtali  ?  " 
and  her  easy  tears  would  flow. 

Upon  an  impressionable  child  the  effect  of  this 
continual  and  pretty  accompaniment  to  life  was 
deep.  The  woman's  quietism  and  piety  passed  on 
to  his  different  nature  undiminished;  but  whereas 
in  her  it  was  a  native  sentiment,  in  him  it  was  only 
an  implanted  dogma.  Nature  and  the  child's  pug- 
nacity at  times  revolted.  A  cad  from  the  Potter- 
row  once  struck  him  in  the  mouth ;  he  struck  back, 
the  pair  fought  it  out  in  the  back  stable  lane  to- 
wards the  Meadows,  and  Archie  returned  with  a 
considerable  decline  in  the  number  of  his  front 
teeth,  and  unregenerately  boasting  of  the  losses  of 
the  foe.  It  was  a  sore  day  for  Mrs.  Weir;  she 
wept  and  prayed  over  the  infant  backslider  until 
my  lord  was  due  from  court,  and  she  must  resume 
that  air  of  tremulous  composure  with  which  she 
always  greeted  him.  The  Judge  was  that  day  in  an 
observant  mood,  and  remarked  upon  the  absent 
teeth. 

"  I  am  afraid  Erchie  will  have  been  fechting 
with  some  of  they  blagyard  lads,"  said  Mrs.  Weir. 

My  lord's  voice  rang  out  as  it  did  seldom  in  the 


i4    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

privacy  of  his  own  house.  "  I  '11  have  norm  of  that, 
sir !  "  he  cried.  "  Do  you  hear-  me  ?  —  nonn  of 
that !  No  son  of  mine  shall  be  speldering  in  the 
glaur  with  any  dirty  raibble." 

The  anxious  mother  was  grateful  for  so  much 
support;  she  had  even  feared  the  contrary.  And 
that  night  when  she  put  the  child  to  bed  —  "  Now, 
my  dear,  ye  see !  "  she  said,  "  I  told  you  what  your 
faither  would  think  of  it,  if  he  heard  ye  had  fallen 
into  this  dreidful  sin;  and  let  you  and  me  pray  to 
God  that  ye  may  be  keepit  from  the  like  tempta- 
tion or  stren'thened  to  resist  it ! " 

The  womanly  falsity  of  this  was  thrown  away. 
Ice  and  iron  cannot  be  welded;  and  the  points  of 
view  of  the  Justice-Clerk  and  Mrs.  Weir  were  not 
less  unassimilable.  The  character  and  position  of 
his  father  had  long  been  a  stumbling-block  to 
Archie,  and  with  every  year  of  his  age  the  diffi- 
culty grew  more  instant.  The  man  was  mostly 
silent;  when  he  spoke  at  all,  it  was  to  speak  of 
the  things  of  the  world,  always  in  a  worldly  spirit, 
often  in  language  that  the  child  had  been  schooled 
to  think  coarse,  and  sometimes  with  words  that  he 
knew  to  be  sins  in  themselves.  Tenderness  was  the 
first  duty,  and  my  lord  was  invariably  harsh.  God 
was  love;  the  name  of  my  lord  (to  all  who  knew 
him)  was  fear.  In  the  world,  as  schematised  for 
Archie  by  his  mother,  the  place  was  marked  for 
such  a  creature.  There  were  some  whom  it  was 
good  to  pity  and  well  (though  very  likely  useless) 
to  pray  for;  they  were  named  reprobates,  goats, 
God's  enemies,  brands  for  the  burning ;  and  Archie 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     15 

tallied  every  mark  of  identification,  and  drew  the 
inevitable  private  inference  that  the  Lord  Justice- 
Clerk  was  the  chief  of  sinners. 

The  mother's  honesty  was  scarce  complete. 
There  was  one  influence  she  feared  for  the  child 
and  still  secretly  combated;  that  was  my  lord's; 
and  half  unconsciously,  half  in  a  wilful  blindness, 
she  continued  to  undermine  her  husband  with  his 
son.  As  long  as  Archie  remained  silent,  she  did 
so  ruthlessly,  with  a  single  eye  to  heaven  and  the 
child's  salvation;  but  the  day  came  when  Archie 
spoke.  It  was  1801,  and  Archie  was  seven,  and 
beyond  his  years  for  curiosity  and  logic,  when  he 
brought  the  case  up  openly.  If  judging  were  sin- 
ful and  forbidden,  how  came  papa  to  be  a  judge? 
to  have  that  sin  for  a  trade  ?  to  bear  the  name  of  it 
for  a  distinction? 

"  I  can't  see  it,"  said  the  little  Rabbi,  and 
wagged  his  head. 

Mrs.  Weir  abounded  in  commonplace  replies. 

"  No,  I  cannae  see  it,"  reiterated  Archie.  "  And 
I  '11  tell  you  what,  mamma,  I  don't  think  you  and 
me  's  justifeed  in  staying  with  him." 

The  woman  awoke  to  remorse;  she  saw  herself 
disloyal  to  her  man,  her  sovereign  and  bread-winner, 
in  whom  (with  what  she  had  of  worldliness)  she 
took  a  certain  subdued  pride.  She  expatiated  in 
reply  on  my  lord's  honour  and  greatness ;  his  use- 
ful services  in  this  world  of  sorrow  and  wrong, 
and  the  place  in  which  he  stood,  far  above  where 
babes  and  innocents  could  hope  to  see  or  criticise. 
But  she  had  builded  too  well  —  Archie  had  his 


16     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

answers  pat:  Were  not  babes  and  innocents  the 
type  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?  Were  not  honour 
and  greatness  the  badges  of  the  world?  And  at 
any  rate,  how  about  the  mob  that  had  once  seethed 
about  the  carriage? 

"  It 's  all  very  fine,"  he  concluded,  "  but  in  my 
opinion,  papa  has  no  right  to  be  it.  And  it  seems 
that 's  not  the  worst  yet  of  it.  It  seems  he  's  called 
■  the  Hanging  Judge '  —  it  seems  he  's  crooool. 
I  '11  tell  you  what  it  is,  mamma,  there  's  a  tex' 
borne  in  upon  me:  it  were  better  for  that  man 
if  a  milestone  were  bound  upon  his  back  and 
him  flung  into  the  deepestmost  pairts  of  the 
sea." 

"  O,  my  lamb,  ye  must  never  say  the  like  of 
that !  "  she  cried.  "  Ye  're  to  honour  faither  and 
mother,  dear,  that  your  days  may  be  long  in  the 
land.  It 's  Atheists  that  cry  out  against  him  — 
French  Atheists,  Erchie!  Ye  would  never  surely 
even  yourself  down  to  be  saying  the  same  thing  as 
French  Atheists?  It  would  break  my  heart  to 
think  that  of  you.  And  O,  Erchie,  here  arena  you 
setting  up  to  judge?  And  have  ye  no  forgot 
God's  plain  command  —  the  First  with  Promise, 
dear?  Mind  you  upon  the  beam  and  the 
mote!" 

Having  thus  carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
camp,  the  terrified  lady  breathed  again.  And  no 
doubt  it  is  easy  thus  to  circumvent  a  child  with 
catchwords,  but  it  may  be  questioned  how  far  it 
is  effectual.  An  instinct  in  his  breast  detects  the 
quibble,  and  a  voice  condemns  it.    He  will  instantly 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     17 

submit,  privately  hold  the  same  opinion.  For  even 
in  this  simple  and  antique  relation  of  the  mother 
and  the  child,  hypocrisies  are  multiplied. 

When  the  Court  rose  that  year  and  the  family 
returned  to  Hermiston,  it  was  a  common  remark 
in  all  the  country  that  the  lady  was  sore  failed. 
She  seemed  to  loose  and  seize  again  her  touch  with 
life,  now  sitting  inert  in  a  sort  of  durable  bewilder- 
ment, anon  waking  to  feverish  and  weak  activity. 
She  dawdled  about  the  lassies  at  their  work,  looking 
stupidly  on ;  she  fell  to  rummaging  in  old  cabinets 
and  presses,  and  desisted  when  half  through;  she 
would  begin  remarks  with  an  air  of  animation  and 
drop  them  without  a  struggle.  Her  common  ap- 
pearance was  of  one  who  has  forgotten  something 
and  is  trying  to  remember;  and  when  she  over- 
hauled, one  after  another,  the  worthless  and  touch- 
ing mementoes  of  her  youth,  she  might  have  been 
seeking  the  clue  to  that  lost  thought.  During  this 
period  she  gave  many  gifts  to  the  neighbours  and 
house  lassies,  giving  them  with  a  manner  of  regret 
that  embarrassed  the  recipients. 

The  last  night  of  all  she  was  busy  on  some 
female  work,  and  toiled  upon  it  with  so  manifest 
and  painful  a  devotion  that  my  lord  (who  was  not 
often  curious)  inquired  as  to  its  nature. 

She  blushed  to  the  eyes.  "  O,  Edom,  it 's  for 
you !  "  she  said.  "  It 's  slippers.  I  —  I  hae  never 
made  ye  any." 

"  Ye  daft  auld  wife !  "  returned  his  lordship. 
",  A  bonny  figure  I  would  be,  palmering  about  in 
bauchles ! " 


18     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

The  next  day,  at  the  hour  of  her  walk,  Kirstie 
interfered.  Kirstie  took  this  decay  of  her  mistress 
very  hard ;  bore  her  a  grudge,  quarrelled  with  and 
railed  upon  her,  the  anxiety  of  a  genuine  love  wear- 
ing the  disguise  of  temper.  This  day  of  all  days 
she  insisted  disrespectfully,  with  rustic  fury,  that 
Mrs.  Weir  should  stay  at  home.  But,  "  No,  no," 
she  said,  "  it 's  my  lord's  orders,"  and  set  forth  as 
usual.  Archie  was  visible  in  the  acre  bog,  engaged 
upon  some  childish  enterprise,  the  instrument  of 
which  was  mire;  and  she  stood  and  looked  at  him 
awhile  like  one  about  to  call ;  then  thought  other- 
wise, sighed,  and  shook  her  head,  and  proceeded 
on  her  rounds  alone.  The  house  lassies  were  at  the 
burnside  washing,  and  saw  her  pass  with  her  loose, 
weary,  dowdy  gait. 

"  She  's  a  terrible  feckless  wife,  the  mistress !  " 
said  the  one. 

"  Tut,"  said  the  other,  "  the  wumman  's  seeck." 

"  Weel,  I  canna  see  nae  differ  in  her,"  returned 
the  first.  "  A  fushionless  quean,  a  feckless 
carline." 

The  poor  creature  thus  discussed  rambled  awhile 
in  the  grounds  without  a  purpose.  Tides  in  her 
mind  ebbed  and  flowed,  and  carried  her  to  and 
fro  like  seaweed.  She  tried  a  path,  paused,  re- 
turned, and.  tried  another ;  questing,  forgetting  her 
quest ;  the  spirit  of  choice  extinct  in  her  bosom,  or 
devoid  of  sequency.  On  a  sudden,  it  appeared  as 
though  she  had  remembered,  or  had  formed  a  reso- 
lution, wheeled  about,  returned  with  hurried  steps, 
and  appeared  in  the  dining-room,  where  Kirstie 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     19 

was  at  the  cleaning,  like  one  charged  with  an 
important  errand. 

"  Kirstie ! "  she  began,  and  paused ;  and  then 
with  conviction,  "  Mr.  Weir  isna  speeritually 
minded,  but  he  has  been  a  good  man  to  me." 

It  was  perhaps  the  first  time  since  her  husband's 
elevation  that  she  had  forgotten  the  handle  to  his 
name,  of  which  the  tender,  inconsistent  woman 
was  not  a  little  proud.  And  when  Kirstie  looked 
up  at  the  speaker's  face  she  was  aware  of  a  change. 

"  Godsake,  what 's  the  maitter  wi'  ye,  mem  ?  " 
cried  the  housekeeper,  starting  from  the  rug. 

"  I  do  not  ken,"  answered  her  mistress,  shak- 
ing her  head.  "  But  he  is  not  speeritually  minded, 
my  dear." 

"  Here,  sit  down  with  ye !  Godsake,  what  ails 
the  wife  ?  "  cried  Kirstie,  and  helped  and  forced 
her  into  my  lord's  own  chair  by  the  cheek  of  the 
hearth. 

"Keep  me,  what's  this?"  she  gasped.  "Kir- 
stie, what's  this?    I'm  frich'ened." 

They  were  her  last  words. 

It  was  the  lowering  nightfall  when  my  lord 
returned.  He  had  the  sunset  in  his  back,  all  clouds 
and  glory;  and  before  him,  by  the  wayside,  spied 
Kirstie  Elliott  waiting.  She  was  dissolved  in  tears, 
and  addressed  him  in  the  high,  false  note  of  bar- 
barous mourning,  such  as  still  lingers  modified 
among  Scots  heather. 

"  The  Lord  peety  ye,  Hermiston !  the  Lord  pre- 
pare ye!  "  she  keened  out.  "  Weary  upon  me,  that 
I  should  have  to  tell  it ! " 


20    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

He  reined  in  his  horse  and  looked  upon  her  with 
the  hanging  face. 

"  Has  the  French  landit?  "  cried  he. 

"  Man,  man,"  she  said,  "  is  that  a'  ye  can  think 
of?  The  Lord  prepare  ye,  the  Lord  comfort  and 
support  ye !  " 

"  Is  onybody  deid  ?  "  says  his  lordship.  "  It 's 
no  Erchie  ?  " 

"  Bethankit,  no !  "  exclaimed  the  woman,  startled 
into  a  more  natural  tone.  "  Na,  na,  it 's  no  sae 
bad  as  that.  It 's  the  mistress,  my  lord ;  she  just 
fair  flittit  before  my  e'en.  She  just  gi'ed  a  sab 
and  was  by  with  it.  Eh,  my  bonny  Miss  Jeannie, 
that  I  mind  sae  weel !  "  And  forth  again  upon  that 
pouring  tide  of  lamentation  in  which  women  of  her 
class  excel  and  overabound. 

Lord  Hermiston  sat  in  the  saddle  beholding  her. 
Then  he  seemed  to  recover  command  upon  himself. 

"  Weel,  it  's  something  of  the  suddenest,"  said 
he.  / "  But  she  was  a  dwaibly  body  from  the 
first." 

And  he  rode  home  at  a  precipitate  amble  with 
Kirstie  at  his  horse's  heels. 

Dressed  as  she  was  for  her  last  walk,  they  had 
laid  the  dead  lady  on  her  bed.  She  was  never  inter- 
esting in  life;  in  death  she  was  not  impressive; 
and  as  her  husband  stood  before  her,  with  his 
hands  crossed  behind  his  powerful  back,  that 
which  he  looked  upon  was  the  very  image  of  the 
insignificant. 

"  Her  and  me  were  never  cut  out  for  one 
another,"  he  remarked  at  last.    "  It  was  a  daft-like 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     21 

marriage."  And  then,  with  a  most  unusual  gen- 
tleness of  tone,  "  Puir  bitch,"  said  he,  "  puir 
bitch !  "    Then  suddenly:  "  Where  's  Erchie?  " 

Kirstie  had  decoyed  him  to  her  room  and  given 
him  "  a  jeely-piece." 

"  Ye  have  some  kind  of  gumption,  too,"  ob- 
served the  Judge,  and  considered  his  housekeeper 
grimly.  "  When  all 's  said,"  he  added,  "  I  micht 
have  done  waur  —  I  micht  have  been  marriet  upon 
a  skirling  Jezebel  like  you !  " 

"  There 's  naebody  thinking*  of  you,  Hermis- 
ton !  "  cried  the  offended  woman.  "  We  think  of 
her  that 's  out  of  her  sorrows.  And  could  she  have 
done  waur?  Tell  me  that,  Hermiston —  tell  me 
that  before  her  clay-cauld  corp !  " 

"Weel,  there's  some  of  them  gey  an'  ill  to 
please,"  observed  his  lordship. 


CHAPTER   II 

FATHER   AND   SON 

MY  Lord  Justice-Clerk  was  known  to 
many ;  the  man  Adam  Weir  perhaps  to 
none.  He  had  nothing  to  explain  or 
to  conceal ;  he  sufficed  wholly  and  silently  to  him- 
self;  and  that  part  of  our  nature  which  goes  out 
(too  often  with  false  coin)  to  acquire  glory  or  love, 
seemed  in  him  to  be  omitted.  He  did  not  try  to 
be  loved,  he  did  not  care  to  be;  it  is  probable  the 
very  thought  of  it  was  a  stranger  to  his  mind.  He 
was  an  admired  lawyer,  a  highly  unpopular  judge; 
and  he  looked  down  upon  those  who  were  his  in- 
feriors in  either  distinction,  who  were  lawyers  of 
less  grasp  or  judges  not  so  much  detested.  In  all 
the  rest  of  his  days  and  doings,  not  one  trace  of 
vanity  appeared ;  and  he  went  on  through  life  with 
a  mechanical  movement,  as  of  the  unconscious, 
that  was  almost  august. 

He  saw  little  of  his  son.  In  the  childish  mala- 
dies with  which  the  boy  was  troubled,  he  would 
make  daily  inquiries  and  daily  pay  him  a  visit, 
entering  the  sick-room  with  a  facetious  and  appal- 
ling countenance,  letting  off  a  few  perfunctory 
jests,  and  going  again  swiftly,  to  the  patient's 
relief.    Once,  a  court  holiday  falling  opportunely, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     23 

my  lord  had  his  carriage,  and  drove  the  child  him- 
self to  Hermiston,  the  customary  place  of  conva- 
lescence. It  is  conceivable  he  had  been  more  than 
usually  anxious,  for  that  journey  always  remained 
in  Archie's  memory  as  a  thing  apart,  his  father 
having  related  to  him  from  beginning  to  end,  and 
with  much  detail,  three  authentic  murder  cases. 
Archie  went  the  usual  round  of  other  Edinburgh 
boys,  the  high  school  and  the  college ;  and  Hermis- 
ton looked  on,  or  rather  looked  away,  with  scarce 
an  affectation  of  interest  in  his  progress.  Daily, 
indeed,  upon  a  signal  after  dinner,  he  was  brought 
in,  given  nuts  and  a  glass  of  port,  regarded  sardoni- 
cally, sarcastically  questioned.  "  Well,  sir,  and 
what  have  you  donn  with  your  book  to-day  ? " 
my  lord  might  begin,  and  set  him  posers  in  law 
Latin.  To  a  child  just  stumbling  into  Corderius, 
Papinian  and  Paul  proved  quite  invincible.  But 
papa  had  memory  of  no  other.  He  was  not  harsh 
to  the  little  scholar,  having  a  vast  fund  of  patience 
learned  upon  the  Bench,  and  was  at  no  pains 
whether  to  conceal  or  to  express  his  disappoint- 
ment. "  Well,  ye  have  a  long  jaunt  before  ye 
yet !  "  he  might  observe,  yawning,  and  fall  back  on 
his  own  thoughts  (as  like  as  not)  until  the  time 
came  for  separation,  and  my  lord  would  take  the 
decanter  and  the  glass,  and  be  off  to  the  back 
chamber  looking  on  the  Meadows,  where  he  toiled 
on  his  cases  till  the  hours  were  small.  There  was 
no  "  fuller  man  "  on  the  Bench ;  his  memory  was 
marvellous,  though  wholly  legal;  if  he  had  to 
"  advise  "  extempore,  none  did  it  better ;  yet  there 


a4    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

was  none  who  more  earnestly  prepared.  As  he 
thus  watched  in  the  night,  or  sat  at  table  and  forgot 
the  presence  of  his  son,  no  doubt  but  he  tasted 
deeply  of  recondite  pleasures.  To  be  wholly 
devoted  to  some  intellectual  exercise  is  to  have 
succeeded  in  life ;  and  perhaps  only  in  law  and  the 
higher  mathematics  may  this  devotion  be  main- 
tained, suffice  to  itself  without  reaction,  and  find 
continual  rewards  without  excitement.  This  at- 
mosphere of  his  father's  sterling  industry  was  the 
best  of  Archie's  education.  Assuredly  it  did  not 
attract  him;  assuredly  it  rather  rebutted  and  de- 
pressed. Yet  it  was  still  present,  unobserved  like 
the  ticking  of  a  clock,  an  arid  ideal,  a  tasteless 
stimulant  in  the  boy's  life. 

But  Hermiston  was  not  all  of  one  piece.  He 
was,  besides,  a  mighty  toper ;  he  could  sit  at  wine 
until  the  day  dawned,  and  pass  directly  from  the 
table  to  the  Bench  with  a  steady  hand  and  a  clear 
head.  Beyond  the  third  bottle,  he  showed  the  ple- 
beian in  a  larger  print;  the  low,  gross  accent,  the 
low,  foul  mirth,  grew  broader  and  commoner;  he 
became  less  formidable,  and  infinitely  more  dis- 
gusting. Now,  the  boy  had  inherited  from  Jean 
Rutherford  a  shivering  delicacy,  unequally  mated 
with  potential  violence.  In  the  playing-fields,  and 
amongst  his  own  companions,  he  repaid  a  coarse 
expression  with  a  blow ;  at  his  father's  table  (when 
the  time  came  for  him  to  join  these  revels)  he 
turned  pale  and  sickened  in  silence.  Of  all  the 
guests  whom  he  there  encountered,  he  had  tolera- 
tion for  only  one:    David  Keith  Carnegie,  Lord 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     25 

Glenalmond.  Lord  Glenalmond  was  tall  and  ema- 
ciated, with  long  features  and  long  delicate  hands. 
He  was  often  compared  with  the  statue  of  Forbes 
of  Culloden  in  the  Parliament  House;  and  his 
blue  eye,  at  more  than  sixty,  preserved  some  of  the 
fire  of  youth.  His  exquisite  disparity  with  any 
of  his  fellow  guests,  his  appearance  as  of  an  art- 
ist and  an  aristocrat  stranded  in  rude  company, 
riveted  the  boy's  attention;  and  as  curiosity  and 
interest  are  the  things  in  the  world  that  are  the 
most  immediately  and  certainly  rewarded,  Lord 
Glenalmond  was  attracted  to  the  boy. 

"And  so  this  is  your  son,  Hermiston?"  he 
asked,  laying  his  hand  on  Archie's  shoulder. 
"He's  getting  a  big  lad." 

"  Hout !  "  said  the  gracious  father,  "  just  his 
mother  over  again  —  daurna  say  boo  to  a  goose !  " 

But  the  stranger  retained  the  boy,  talked  to  him, 
drew  him  out,  found  in  him  a  taste  for  letters,  and 
a  fine,  ardent,  modest,  youthful  soul;  and  encour- 
aged him  to  be  a  visitor  on  Sunday  evenings  in  his 
bare,  cold,  lonely  dining-room,  where  he  sat  and 
read  in  the  isolation  of  a  bachelor  grown  old  in 
refinement.  The  beautiful  gentleness  and  grace  of 
the  old  Judge,  and  the  delicacy  of  his  person, 
thoughts,  and  language,  spoke  to  Archie's  heart  in 
its  own  tongue.  He  conceived  the  ambition  to  be 
such  another ;  and,  when  the  day  came  for  him  to 
choose  a  profession,  it  was  in  emulation  of  Lord 
Glenalmond,  not  of  Lord  Hermiston,  that  he  chose 
the  Bar.  Hermiston  looked  on  at  this  friendship 
with  some  secret  pride,  but  openly  with  the  intoler- 


26     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

ance  of  scorn.  He  scarce  lost  an  opportunity  to  put 
them  down  with  a  rough  jape ;  and,  to  say  truth,  it 
was  not  difficult,  for  they  were  neither  of  them 
quick.  He  had  a  word  of  contempt  for  the  whole 
crowd  of  poets,  painters,  fiddlers,  and  their  admir- 
ers, the  bastard  race  of  amateurs,  which  was  con- 
tinually on  his  lips.  "  Signor  Feedle-eerie  1 "  he 
would  say.  "  Oh,  for  Goad's  sake,  no  more  of  the 
signor ! " 

"  You  and  my  father  are  great  friends,  are  you 
not  ?  "  asked  Archie  once. 

"  There  is  no  man  that  I  more  respect,  Archie," 
replied  Lord  Glenalmond.  "  He  is  two  things  of 
price.  He  is  a  great  lawyer,  and  he  is  upright 
as  the  day." 

"  You  and  he  are  so  different,"  said  the  boy, 
his  eyes  dwelling  on  those  of  his  old  friend,  like  a 
lover's  on  his  mistress's. 

"Indeed  so,"  replied  the  Judge;  "very  differ- 
ent. And  so  I  fear  are  you  and  he.  Yet  I  would 
like  it  very  ill  if  my  young  friend  were  to  mis- 
judge his  father.  He  has  all  the  Roman  virtues: 
Cato  and  Brutus  were  such ;  I  think  a  son's  heart 
might  well  be  proud  of  such  an  ancestry  of  one." 

"  And  I  would  sooner  he  were  a  plaided  herd," 
cried  Archie,  with  sudden  bitterness. 

"  And  that  is  neither  very  wise,  nor  I  believe  en- 
tirely true,"  returned  Glenalmond.  "  Before  you 
are  done  you  will  find  some  of  these  expressions 
rise  on  you  like  a  remorse.  They  are  merely  liter- 
ary and  decorative ;  they  do  not  aptly  express  your 
thought,  nor  is  your  thought  clearly  apprehended, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    27 

and  no  doubt  your  father  (if  he  were  here)  would 
say  '  Signor  Feedle-eerie ! '  " 

With  the  infinitely  delicate  sense  of  youth, 
Archie  avoided  the  subject  from  that  hour.  It 
was  perhaps  a  pity.  Had  he  but  talked  —  talked 
freely  —  let  himself  gush  out  in  words  (the  way 
youth  loves  to  do  and  should),  there  might  have 
been  no  tale  to  write  upon  the  Weirs  of  Hermiston. 
But  the  shadow  of  a  threat  of  ridicule  sufficed;  in 
the  slight  tartness  of  these  words  he  read  a  pro- 
hibition; and  it  is  likely  that  Glenalmond  meant 
it  so. 

Besides  the  veteran,  the  boy  was  without  con- 
fidant or  friend.  Serious  and  eager,  he  came 
through  school  and  college,  and  moved  among  a 
crowd  of  the  indifferent,  in  the  seclusion  of  his  shy- 
ness. He  grew  up  handsome,  with  an  open,  speak- 
ing countenance,  with  graceful,  youthful  ways; 
he  was  clever,  he  took  prizes,  he  shone  in  the  Specu- 
lative Society.1  It  should  seem  he  must  become 
the  centre  of  a  crowd  of  friends;  but  something 
that  was  in  part  the  delicacy  of  his  mother,  in  part 
the  austerity  of  his  father,  held  him  aloof  from 
all.  It  is  a  fact,  and  a  strange  one,  that  among 
his  contemporaries  Hermiston's  son  was  thought  to 
be  a  chip  of  the  old  block.  "  You  're  a  friend  of 
Archie  Weir's  ?  "  said  one  to  Frank  Innes ;  and 
Innes  replied,  with  his  usual  flippancy  and  more 
than  his  usual  insight :  "  I  know  Weir,  but  I  never 
met  Archie."    No  one  had  met  Archie,  a  malady 

1  A  famous  debating  society  of  the  students  of  Edinburgh 
University. 


28    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

most  incident  to  only  sons.  He  flew  his  private 
signal,  and  none  heeded  it;  it  seemed  he  was 
abroad  in  a  world  from  which  the  very  hope  of 
intimacy  was  banished ;  and  he  looked  round  about 
him  on  the  concourse  of  his  fellow-students,  and 
forward  to  the  trivial  days  and  acquaintances  that 
were  to  come,  without  hope  or  interest. 

As  time  went  on,  the  tough  and  rough  old  sin- 
ner felt  himself  drawn  to  the  son  of  his  loins  and 
sole  continuator  of  his  new  family,  with  softnesses 
of  sentiment  that  he  could  hardly  credit  and  was 
wholly  impotent  to  express.  With  a  face,  voice, 
and  manner  trained  through  forty  years  to  terrify 
and  repel,  Rhadamanthus  may  be  great,  but  he 
will  scarce  be  engaging.  It  is  a  fact  that  he  tried 
to  propitiate  Archie,  but  a  fact  that  cannot  be  too 
lightly  taken;  the  attempt  was  so  unconspicu- 
ously  made,  the  failure  so  stoically  supported. 
Sympathy  is  not  due  to  the  steadfast  iron  natures. 
If  he  failed  to  gain  his  son's  friendship,  or  even  his 
son's  toleration,  on  he  went  up  the  great,  bare 
staircase  of  his  duty,  uncheered  and  undepressed. 
There  might  have  been  more  pleasure  in  his  rela- 
tions with  Archie,  so  much  he  may  have  recog- 
nised at  moments ; .  but  pleasure  was  a  by-product 
of  the  singular  chemistry  of  life,  which  only  fools 
expected. 

An  idea  of  Archie's  attitude,  since  we  are  all 
grown  up  and  have  forgotten  the  days  of  our 
youth,  it  is  more  difficult  to  convey.  He  made  no 
attempt  whatsoever  to  understand  the  man  with 
whom  he  dined  and  breakfasted.     Parsimony  of 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     29 

pain,  glut  of  pleasure,  these  are  the  two  alternating 
ends  of  youth ;  and  Archie  was  of  the  parsimo- 
nious. The  wind  blew  cold  out  of  a  certain  quarter 
—  he  turned  his  back  upon  it ;  stayed  as  little  as  was 
possible  in  his  father's  presence;  and  when  there, 
averted  his  eyes  as  much  as  was  decent  from  his 
father's  face.  The  lamp  shone  for  many  hundred 
days  upon  these  two  at  table  —  my  lord  ruddy, 
gloomy,  and  unreverent;  Archie  with  a  potential 
brightness  that  was  always  dimmed  and  veiled 
in  that  society;  and  there  were  not,  perhaps,  in 
Christendom  two  men  more  radically  strangers. 
The  father,  with  a  grand  simplicity,  either  spoke  of 
what  interested  himself,  or  maintained  an  unaf- 
fected silence.  The  son  turned  in  his  head  for  some 
topic  that  should  be  quite  safe,  that  would  spare 
him  fresh  evidences  either  of  my  lord's  inherent 
grossness  or  of  the  innocence  of  his  inhumanity; 
treading  gingerly  the  ways  of  intercourse,  like  a 
lady  gathering  up  her  skirts  in  a  by-path.  If  he 
made  a  mistake,  and  my  lord  began  to  abound  in 
matter  of  offence,  Archie  drew  himself  up,  his  brow 
grew  dark,  his  share  of  the  talk  expired;  but  my 
lord  would  faithfully  and  cheerfully  continue  to 
pour  out  the  worst  of  himself  before  his  silent  and 
offended  son. 

"  Well,  it 's  a  poor  hert  that  never  rejoices,"  he 
would  say,  at  the  conclusion  of  such  a  nightmare 
interview.  "  But  I  must  get  to  my  plew-stilts." 
And  he  would  seclude  himself  as  usual  in  the  back 
room,  and  Archie  go  forth  into  the  night  and  the 
city  quivering  with  animosity  and  scorn. 


CHAPTER   III 

IN    THE    MATTER    OF    THE    HANGING    OF 
DUNCAN  JOPP 

IT  chanced  in  the  year  1813  that  Archie  strayed 
one  day  into  the  Judiciary  Court.  The  macer 
made  room  for  the  son  of  the  presiding  judge. 
In  the  dock,  the  centre  of  men's  eyes,  there  stood  a 
whey-coloured,  misbegotten  caitiff,  Duncan  Jopp, 
on  trial  for  his  life.  His  story,  as  it  was  raked 
out  before  him  in  that  public  scene,  was  one  of  dis- 
grace and  vice  and  cowardice,  the  very  nakedness 
of  crime;  and  the  creature  heard  and  it  seemed  at 
times  as  though  he  understood  —  as  if  at  times 
he  forgot  the  horror  of  the  place  he  stood  in,  and 
remembered  the  shame  of  what  had  brought  him 
there.  He  kept  his  head  bowed  and  his  hands 
clutched  upon  the  rail;  his  hair  dropped  in  his 
eyes  and  at  times  he  flung  it  back;  and  now  he 
glanced  about  the  audience  in  a  sudden  fellness  of 
terror,  and  now  looked  in  the  face  of  his  judge  and 
gulped.  There  was  pinned  about  his  throat  a 
piece  of  dingy  flannel;  and  this  it  was  perhaps 
that  turned  the  scale  in  Archie's  mind  between  dis- 
gust and  pity.  The  creature  stood  in  a  vanishing 
point;  yet  a  little  while,  and  he  was  still  a  man, 
and  had  eyes  and  apprehension ;  yet  a  little  longer, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     31 

I 

and  with  a  last  sordid  piece  of  pageantry,  ne 
would  cease  to  be.  And  here,  in  the  meantime, 
with  a  trait  of  human  nature  that  caught  at  the  be- 
holder's breath,  he  was  tending  a  sore  throat. 

Over  against  him,  my  Lord  Hermiston  occupied 
the  Bench  in  the  red  robes  of  criminal  jurisdiction, 
his  face  framed  in  the  white  wig.  Honest  all 
through,  he  did  not  affect  the  virtue  of  impartiality ; 
this  was  no  case  for  refinement;  there  was  a  man 
to  be  hanged,  he  would  have  said,  and  he  was  hang- 
ing him.  Nor  was  it  possible  to  see  his  lordship, 
and  acquit  him  of  gusto  in  the  task.  It  was 
plain  he  gloried  in  the  exercise  of  his  trained  facul- 
ties, in  the  clear  sight  which  pierced  at  once  into  the 
joint  of  fact,  in  the  rude,  unvarnished  jibes  with 
which  he  demolished  every  figment  of  defence.  He 
took  his  ease  and  jested,  unbending  in  that  solemn 
place  with  some  of  the  freedom  of  the  tavern ;  and 
the  rag  of  man  with  the  flannel  round  his  neck  was 
hunted  gallowsward  with  jeers. 

Duncan  had  a  mistress,  scarce  less  forlorn  and 
greatly  older  than  himself,  who  came  up,  whim- 
pering and  curtseying,  to  add  the  weight  of  her 
betrayal.  My  lord  gave  her  the  oath  in  his  most 
roaring  voice  and  added  an  intolerant  warning. 

"Mind  what  ye  say  now,  Janet,,,  said  he.  "I 
have  an  e'e  upon  ye ;  I  'm  ill  to  jest  with.,, 

Presently,  after  she  was  tremblingly  embarked 
on  her  story,  "  And  what  made  ye  do  this,  ye  auld 
runt?"  the  Court  interposed.  "Do  ye  mean  to 
tell  me  ye  was  the  pannel's  mistress  ?  " 

"  If  you  please,  ma  loard,"  whined  the  female. 


32     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

"  Godsake !  ye  made  a  bonny  couple,"  observed 
his  lordship;  and  there  was  something  so  formid- 
able and  ferocious  in  his  scorn  that  not  even  the 
galleries  thought  to  laugh. 

The  summing  up  contained  some  jewels. 

"  These  two  peetiable  creatures  seem  to  have 
made  up  thegither,  it 's  not  for  us  to  explain  why." 

—  "  The  pannel,  who  (whatever  else  he  may  be) 
appears  to  be  equally  ill  set  out  in  mind  and  boady." 

—  "  Neither  the  pannel  nor  yet  the  old  wife  appears 
to  have  had  so  much  common-sense  as  even  to  tell 
a  lie  when  it  was  necessary."  And  in  the  course  of 
sentencing,  my  lord  had  this  obiter  dictum:  "  I 
have  been  the  means,  under  God,  of  haanging  a 
great  number,  but  never  just  such  a  disjaskit  ras- 
cal as  yourself."  The  words  were  strong  in  them- 
selves; the  light  and  heat  and  detonation  of  their 
delivery,  and  the  savage  pleasure  of  the  speaker  in 
his  task,  made  them  tingle  in  the  ears. 

When  all  was  over,  Archie  came  forth  again 

into  a  changed  world.     Had  there  been  the  least 

redeeming  greatness  in  the  crime,  any  obscurity, 

any  dubiety,  perhaps  he  might  have  understood. 

But  the  culprit  stood,  with  his  sore  throat,  in  the 

sweat  of  his  mortal  agony,  without  defense  or 

excuse ;  a  thing  to  cover  up  with  blushes ;  a  being 

so  much  sunk  beneath  the  zones  of  sympathy  that 

pity  might  seem  harmless.  [_And  the  Judge  had 

/  pursued  him  with  a  monstrous,  relishing  gaiety, 

I  horrible  to  be  conceived,  a  trait  for  nightmares. 

I  It  is  one  thing  to  spear  a  tiger,  another  to  crush  a 

toad;    there  are  aesthetics  even  of  the  slaughter- 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    33 

house;  and  the  loathsomeness  of  Duncan  Jopp 
enveloped  and  infected  the  image  of  his  judge. 

Archie  passed  by  his  friends  in  the  High  Street 
with  incoherent  words  and  gestures.  He  saw 
Holyrood  in  a  dream,  remembrance  of  its  romance 
awoke  in  him  and  faded ;  he  had  a  vision  of  the  old 
radiant  stories,  of  Queen  Mary  and  Prince  Charlie, 
of  the  hooded  stag,  of  the  splendour  and  crime,  the 
velvet  and  bright  iron  of  the  past;  and  dismissed 
them  with  a  cry  of  pain.  He  lay  and  moaned  in 
the  Hunter's  Bog,  and  the  heavens  were  dark  above 
him  and  the  grass  of  the  field  an  offence.  "  This 
is  my  father,"  he  said.  "  I  draw  my  life  from 
him;  the  flesh  upon  my  bones  is  his,  the  bread  I 
am  fed  with  is  the  wages  of  these  horrors."  He 
recalled  his  mother,  and  ground  his  forehead  in  the 
earth.  He  thought  of  flight,  and  where  was  he  to 
flee  to  ?  of  other  lives,  but  was  there  any  life  worth 
living  in  this  den  of  savage  and  jeering  animals  ? 

The  interval  before  the  execution  was  like  a 
violent  dream.  He  met  his  father;  he  would  not 
look  at  him,  he  could  not  speak  to  him.  It  seemed 
there  was  no  living  creature  but  must  have  been 
swift  to  recognise  that  imminent  animosity,  but 
the  hide  of  the  Lord  Justice-Clerk  remained  im- 
penetrable. Had  my  lord  been  talkative,  the  truce 
could  never  have  subsisted ;  but  he  was  by  fortune 
in  one  of  his  humours  of  sour  silence;  and  under 
the  very  guns  of  his  broadside  Archie  nursed  the 
enthusiasm  of  rebellion.  It  seemed  to  him,  from  the 
top  of  his  nineteen  years'  experience,  as  if  he  were 
marked  at  birth  to  be  the  perpetrator  of  some  signal 

3      '' 


34     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

action,  to  set  back  fallen  Mercy,  to  overthrow 
the  usurping  devil  that  sat,  horned  and  hoofed, 
on  her  throne.  Seductive  Jacobin  figments,  which 
he  had  often  refuted  at  the  Speculative,  swam  up 
in  his  mind  and  startled  him  as  with  voices;  and 
he  seemed  to  himself  to  walk  accompanied  by  an 
almost  tangible  presence  of  new  beliefs  and  duties. 

On  the  named  morning  he  was  at  the  place  of 
execution.  He  saw  the  fleering  rabble,  the  flinch- 
ing wretch  produced.  He  looked  on  for  awhile 
at  a  certain  parody  of  devotion,  which  seemed  to 
strip  the  wretch  of  his  last  claim  to  manhood. 
Then  followed  the  brutal  instant  of  extinction,  and 
the  paltry  dangling  of  the  remains  like  a  broken 
jumping- jack.  He  had  been  prepared  for  some- 
thing terrible,  not  for  this  tragic  meanness.  He 
stood  a  moment  silent,  and  then  —  "I  denounce 
this  God-defying  murder,"  he  shouted;  and  his 
father,  if  he  must  have  disclaimed  the  sentiment; 
might  have  owned  the  stentorian  voice  with  whicfi 
it  was  uttered. 

Frank  Innes  dragged  him  from  the  spot.  The 
two  handsome  lads  followed  the  same  course  of 
study  and  recreation,  and  felt  a  certain  mutual  at- 
traction, founded  mainly  on  good  looks.  It  had 
never  gone  deep;  Frank  was  by  nature  a  thin, 
jeering  creature,  not  truly  susceptible  whether  of 
feeling  or  inspiring  friendship;  and  the  relation 
between  the  pair  was  altogether  on  the  outside,  a 
thing  of  common  knowledge  and  the  pleasantries 
that  spring  from  a  common  acquaintance.  The 
more  credit  to  Frank  that  he  was  appalled  by 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    35 

Archie's  outburst,  and  at  least  conceived  the  design 
of  keeping  him  in  sight,  and,  if  possible,  in  hand, 
for  the  day.  But  Archie,  who  had  just  defied  — 
was  it  God  or  Satan?  —  would  not  listen  to  the 
word  of  a  college  companion.. 

"  I  will  not  go  with  you,"  he  said.  "  I  do  not 
desire  your  company,  sir ;   I  would  be  alone." 

"Here,  Weir,  man,  don't  be  absurd,"  said 
Innes,  keeping  a  tight  hold  upon  his  sleeve.  "I 
will  not  let  you  go  until  I  know  what  you  mean  to 
do  with  yourself;  it's  no  use  brandishing  that 
staff."  For  indeed  at  that  moment  Archie  had 
made  a  sudden  —  perhaps  a  warlike  —  movement. 
"  This  has  been  the  most  insane  affair ;  you  know 
it  has.  You  know  very  well  that  I  'm  playing  the 
good  Samaritan.    All  I  wish  is  to  keep  you  quiet." 

"If  quietness  is  what  you  wish,  Mr.  Innes," 
said  Archie,  "  and  you  will  promise  to  leave  me 
entirely  to  myself,  I  will  tell  you  so  much,  that  I 
am  going  to  walk  in  the  country  and  admire  the 
beauties  of  nature." 

"  Honour  bright  ?  "  asked  Frank. 

"  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  lying,  Mr.  Innes,"  re- 
torted Archie.  "  I  have  the  honour  of  wishing  you 
good-day." 

"  You  won't  forget  the  Spec.  ?  "  asked  Innes. 

"  The  Spec?  "  said  Archie.  "  Oh,  no,  I  won't 
forget  the  Spec." 

And  the  one  young  man  carried  his  tortured 
spirit  forth  of  the  city  and  all  the  day  long,  by  one 
road  and  another,  in  an  endless  pilgrimage  of 
misery ;    while  the  other  hastened   smilingly  to 


36    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

spread  the  news  of  Weir's  access  of  insanity,  and 
to  drum  up  for  that  night  a  full  attendance  at  the 
Speculative,  where  farther  eccentric  developments 
might  certainly  be  looked  for.  I  doubt  if  Innes 
had  the  least  belief  in  his  prediction;  I  think  it 
flowed  rather  from  a  wish  to  make  the  story  as 
good  and  the  scandal  as  great  as  possible;  not 
from  any  ill-will  to  Archie  —  from  the  mere 
pleasure  of  beholding  interested  faces.  But  for  all 
that  his  words  were  prophetic.  Archie  did  not  for- 
get the  Spec;  he  put  in  an  appearance  there  at 
the  due  time,  and,  before  the  evening  was  over, 
had  dealt  a  memorable  shock  to  his  companions. 
It  chanced  he  was  the  president  of  the  night. 
He  sat  in  the  same  room  where  the  society  still 
meets  —  only  the  portraits  were  not  there;  the 
men  who  afterwards  sat  for  them  were  then  but 
beginning  their  career.  The  same  lustre  of  many 
tapers  shed  its  light  over  the  meeting;  the  same 
chair,  perhaps,  supported  him  that  so  many  of 
us  have  sat  in  since.  At  times  he  seemed  to  forget 
the  business  of  the  evening,  but  even  in  these  peri- 
ods he  sat  with  a  great  air  of  energy  and  determina- 
tion. At  times  he  meddled  bitterly  and  launched 
with  defiance  those  fines  which  are  the  precious  and 
rarely  used  artillery  of  the  president.  He  little 
thought,  as  he  did  so,  how  he  resembled  his  father, 
but  his  friends  remarked  upon  it,  chuckling.  So 
far,  in  his  high  place  above  his  fellow-students,  he 
seemed  set  beyond  the  possibility  of  any  scandal; 
but  his  mind  was  made  up  —  he  was  determined  to 
fulfil  the  sphere  of  his  offence.    He  signed  to  Innes 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    37 

(whom  he  had  just  fined,  and  who  just  impeached 
his  ruling)  to  succeed  him  in  the  chair,  stepped 
down  from  the  platform,  and  took  his  place  by  the 
chimney-piece,  the  shine  of  many  wax  tapers  from 
above  illuminating  his  pale  face,  the  glow  of  the 
great  red  fire  relieving  from  behind  his  slim  figure. 
He  had  to  propose,  as  an  amendment  to  the  next 
subject  in  the  case  book,  "  Whether  capital  pun- 
ishment be  consistent  with  God's  will  or  man's 
policy?  " 

A  breath  of  embarrassment,  of  something  like 
alarm,  passed  round  the  room,  so  daring  did  these 
words  appear  upon  the  lips  of  Hermiston's  only 
son.  But  the  amendment  was  not  seconded;  the 
previous  question  was  promptly  moved  and  unani- 
mously voted,  and  the  momentary  scandal  smug- 
gled by.  Innes  triumphed  in  the  fulfilment  of  his 
prophecy.  He  and  Archie  were  now  become  the 
heroes  of  the  night;  but  whereas  every  one 
crowded  about  Innes,  when  the  meeting  broke  up, 
but  one  of  all  his  companions  came  to  speak  to 
Archie. 

"  Weir,  man !  that  was  an  extraordinary  raid  of 
yours !  "  observed  this  courageous  member,  taking 
him  confidentially  by  the  arm  as  they  went  out. 

"  I  don't  think  it  a  raid,"  said  Archie  grimly. 
"  More  like  a  war.  I  saw  that  poor  brute  hanged 
this  morning,  and  my  gorge  rises  at  it  yet." 

"  Hut-tut !  "  returned  his  companion,  and,  drop- 
ping his  arm  like  something  hot,  he  sought  the  less 
tense  society  of  others. 

Archie  found  himself  alone.     The  last  of  the 


38     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

faithful  —  or  was  it  only  the  boldest  of  the  curious  ? 

—  had  fled,  [fie  watched  the  black  huddle  of  his 
fellow-students  draw  off  down  and  up  the  street, 
in  whispering  or  boisterous  gangs.  And  the  iso- 
lation of  the  moment  weighed  upon  him  like  an 
omen  and  an  emblem  of  his  destiny  in  lifey*  Bred 
up  in  unbroken  fear  himself,  among  trembling 
servants,  and  in  a  house  which  (at  the  least  ruffle 
in  the  master's  voice)  shuddered  into  silence,  he 
saw  himself  on  the  brink  of  the  red  valley  of  war, 
and  measured  the  danger  and  length  of  it  with 
awe.  He  made  a  detour  in  the  glimmer  and 
shadow  of  the  streets,  came  into  the  back  stable 
lane,  and  watched  for  a  long  while  the  light  burn 
steady  in  the  Judge's  room.  The  longer  he  gazed 
upon  that  illuminated  window-blind,  the  more 
blank  became  the  picture  of  the  man  who  sat  behind 
it,  endlessly  turning  over  sheets  of  process,  paus- 
ing to  sip  a  glass  of  port,  or  rising  and  passing 
heavily  about  his  book-lined  walls  to  verify  some 
reference.  He  could  not  combine  the  brutal  judge 
and  the  industrious,  dispassionate  student;  the 
connecting  link  escaped  him;  from  such  a  dual 
nature,  it  was  impossible  he  should  predict  be- 
haviour; and  he  asked  himself  if  he  had  done  well 
to  plunge  into  a  business  of  which  the  end  could  not 
be  foreseen;  and  presently  after,  with  a  sickening 
decline  of  confidence,  if  he  had  done  loyally  to 
strike  his  father.  For  he  had  struck  him  —  de- 
fied him  twice  over  and  before  a  cloud  of  witnesses 

—  struck  him  a  public  buffet  before  crowds. 
Who  had  called  him  to  judge  his  father  in  these 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 


39 


precarious  and  high  questions?  The  office  was 
usurped.  It  might  have  become  a  stranger;  in  a 
son  —  there  was  no  blinking  it  —  in  a  son,  it  was 
disloyal.  And  now,  between  these  two  natures  so 
antipathetic,  so  hateful  to  each  other,  there  was 
depending  an  unpardonable  affront :  and  the  provi- 
dence of  God  alone  might  foresee  the  manner  in 
which  it  would  be  resented  by  Lord  Hermiston. 

These  misgivings  tortured  him  all  night  and 
arose  with  him  in  the  winter's  morning;  they 
followed  him  from  class  to  class,  they  made  him 
shrinkingly  sensitive  to  every  shade  of  manner  in 
his  companions,  they  sounded  in  his  ears  through 
the  current  voice  of  the  professor ;  and  he  brought 
them  home  with  him  at  night  unabated  and  indeed 
increased.  The  cause  of  this  increase  lay  in  a 
chance  encounter  with  the  celebrated  Dr.  Gregory. 
Archie  stood  looking  vaguely  in  the  lighted  win- 
dow of  a  book  shop,  trying  to  nerve  himself  for 
the  approaching  ordeal.  My  lord  and  he  had  met 
and  parted  in  the  morning  as  they  had  now  done 
for  long,  with  scarcely  the  ordinary  civilities  of 
life;  and  it  was  plain  to  the  son  that  nothing  had 
yet  reached  the  father's  ears.  Indeed,  when  he 
recalled  the  awful  countenance  of  my  lord,  a  timid 
hope  sprang  up  in  him  that  perhaps  there  would  be 
found  no  one  bold  enough  to  carry  tales.  If  this 
were  so,  he  asked  himself,  would  he  begin  again? 
and  he  found  no  answer.  It  was  at  this  moment 
that  a  hand  was  laid  upon  his  arm,  and  a  voice  said 
in  his  ear,  "  My  dear  Mr.  Archie,  you  had  better 
come  and  see  me." 


4o    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

He  started,  turned  around,  and  found  himself 
face  to  face  with  Dr.  Gregory.  "  And  why  should 
I  come  to  see  you  ? "  he  asked,  with  the  defiance 
of  the  miserable. 

"  Because  you  are  looking  exceedingly  ill,"  said 
the  doctor,  "  and  you  very  evidently  want  looking 
after,  my  young  friend.  Good  folk  are  scarce,  you 
know ;  and  it  is  not  every  one  that  would  be  quite 
so  much  missed  as  yourself.  It  is  not  every  one 
that  Hermiston  would  miss." 

And  with  a  nod  and  smile,  the  doctor  passed  on. 

A  moment  after,  Archie  was  in  pursuit,  and 
had  in  turn,  but  more  roughly,  seized  him  by  the 
arm. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  what  did  you  mean  by 
saying  that?  What  makes  you  think  that  Her- 
mis  —  my  father  would  have  missed  me?  " 

The  doctor  turned  about  and  looked  him  all  over 
with  a  clinical  eye.  A  far  more  stupid  man  than 
Dr.  Gregory  might  have  guessed  the  truth;  but 
ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred,  even  if  they  had 
been  equally  inclined  to  kindness,  would  have 
blundered  by  some  touch  of  charitable  exaggera- 
tion. The  doctor  was  better  inspired.  He  knew 
the  father  well;  in  that  white  face  of  intelligence 
and  suffering,  he  divined  something  of  the  son; 
and  he  told,  without  apology  or  adornment,  the 
plain  truth. 

"  When  you  had  the  measles,  Mr.  Archibald, 
you  had  them  gey  and  ill ;  and  I  thought  you  were 
going  to  slip  between  my  fingers,"  he  said.  "  Well, 
your  father  was  anxious.     How  did  I  know  it? 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    41 

says  you.  Simply  because  I  am  a  trained  observer. 
The  sign  that  I  saw  him  make,  ten  thousand  would 
would  have  missed ;  and  perhaps  —  perhaps,  I  say, 
because  he  's  a  hard  man  to  judge  of  —  but  per- 
haps he  never  made  another.  A  strange  thing  to 
consider!  It  was  this.  One  day  I  came  to  him: 
'  Hermiston/  said  I,  *  there 's  a  change/  He 
never  said  a  word,  just  glowered  at  me  (if  ye  '11 
pardon  the  phrase)  like  a  wild  beast.  *  A  change 
for  the  better/  said  I.  And  I  distinctly  heard  him 
take  his  breath." 

The  doctor  left  no  opportunity  for  anti-climax; 
nodding  his  cocked  hat  (a  piece  of  antiquity  to 
which  he  clung)  and  repeating  "  Distinctly  "  with 
raised  eyebrows,  he  took  his  departure,  and  left 
Archie  speechless  in  the  street. 

The  anecdote  might  be  called  infinitely  little,  and 
yet  its  meaning  for  Archie  was  immense.  "  I  did 
not  know  the  old  man  had  so  much  blood  in  him." 
He  had  never  dreamed  this  sire  of  his,  this  aborigi- 
nal antique,  this  adamantine  Adam,  had  even  so 
much  of  a  heart  as  to  be  moved  in  the  least  degree 
for  another  —  and  that  other  himself,  who  had  in- 
sulted him !  With  the  generosity  of  youth,  Archie 
was  instantly  under  arms  upon  the  other  side :  had 
instantly  created  a  new  image  of  Lord  Hermiston, 
that  of  a  man  who  was  all  iron  without  and  all  sen- 
sibility within.  The  mind  of  the  vile  jester,  the 
tongue  that  had  pursued  Duncan  Jopp  with  un- 
manly insults,  the  unbeloved  countenance  that  he 
had  known  and  feared  for  so  long,  were  all  for- 
gotten ;  and  he  hastened  home,  impatient  to  confess 


42     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

his  misdeeds,  impatient  to  throw  himself  on  the 
mercy  of  this  imaginary  character. 

He  was  not  to  be  long  without  a  rude  awaken- 
ing. \J&  was  in  the  gloaming  when  he  drew  near 
the  doorstep  of  the  lighted  house,  and  was  aware 
of  the  figure  of  his  father  approaching  from  the 
opposite  side.  Little  daylight  lingered;  but  on 
the  door  being  opened,  the  strong  yellow  shine  of 
the  lamp  gushed  out  upon  the  landing  and  shone 
full  on  Archie,  as  he  stood,  in  the  old-fashioned 
observance  of  respect,  to  yield  precedenceT]  The 
Judge  came  without  haste,  stepping  stately  and 
firm;  his  chin  raised,  his  face  (as  he  entered  the 
lamplight)  strongly  illumined,  his  mouth  set  hard. 
There  was  never  a  wink  of  change  in  his  expres- 
sion; without  looking  to  the  right  or  left,  he 
mounted  the  stair,  passed  close  to  Archie,  and  en- 
tered the  house.  Instinctively,  the  boy,  upon  his 
first  coming,  had  made  a  movement  to  meet  him; 
instinctively,  he  recoiled  against  the  railing,  as  the 
old  man  swept  by  him  in  a  pomp  of  indignation. 
Words  were  needless ;  he  knew  all  —  perhaps  more 
than  all  —  and  the  hour  of  judgment  was  at  hand. 

It  is  possible  that,  in  this  sudden  revulsion  of 
hope  and  before  these  symptoms  of  impending 
danger,  Archie  might  have  fled.  But  not  even 
that  was  left  to  him.  My  lord,  after  hanging  up 
his  cloak  and  hat,  turned  round  in  the  lighted  entry, 
and  made  him  an  imperative  and  silent  gesture 
with  his  thumb,  and  with  the  strange  instinct  of 
obedience,  Archie  followed  him  into  the  house. 

All  dinner  time  there  reigned  over  the  Judge** 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    43 

table  a  palpable  silence,  and  as  soon  as  the  solids 
were  despatched  he  rose  to  his  feet. 

"  M'Killop,  tak'  the  wine  into  my  room/'  said 
he ;  and  then  to  his  son :  "  Archie,  you  and  me  has 
to  have  a  talk." 

It  was  at  this  sickening  moment  that  Archie's 
courage,  for  the  first  and  last  time,  entirely  de- 
serted him.     "  I  have  an  appointment,"  said  he. 

"  It  '11  have  to  be  broken,  then,"  said  Hermiston, 
and  led  the  way  into  his  study. 

The  lamp  was  shaded,  the  fire  trimmed  to  a 
nicety,  the  table  covered  deep  with  orderly  docu- 
ments, the  backs  of  law  books  made  a  frame  upon 
all  sides  that  was  only  broken  by  the  window  and 
the  doors. 

For  a  moment  Hermiston  warmed  his  hands  at 
the  fire,  presenting  his  back  to  Archie;  then  sud- 
denly disclosed  on  him  the  terrors  of  the  Hanging 
Face. 

"  What 's  this  I  hear  of  ye!  "  he  asked. 

There  was  no  answer  possible  to  Archie. 

"  I  '11  have  to  tell  ye,  then,"  pursued  Hermiston. 
"  It  seems  ye  've  been  skirling  against  the  father 
that  begot  ye,  and  one  of  His  Maijesty's  Judges  in 
this  land;  and  that  in  the  public  street,  and  while 
an  order  of  the  Court  was  being  executit.  Forbye 
which,  it  would  appear  that  ye  've  been  airing  your 
opeenions  in  a  Coallege  Debatin'  Society,"  he 
paused  a  moment:  and,  then,  with  extraordinary 
bitterness,  added :    "  Ye  damned  eediot." 

"  I  had  meant  to  tell  you,"  stammered  Archie. 
"  I  see  you  are  well  informed." 


44    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

"  Muckle  obleeged  to  ye,"  said  his  lordship,  and 
took  his  usual  seat.  "  And  so  you  disapprove  of 
caapital  punishment  ?  "  he  added. 

"  I  am  sorry,  sir,  I  do,"  said  Archie. 

"  I  am  sorry,  too,"  said  his  lordship.  "  And 
now,  if  you  please,  we  shall  approach  this  business 
with  a  little  more  parteecularity.  I  hear  that  at 
the  hanging  of  Duncan  Jopp  —  and,  man !  ye  had 
a  fine  client  there  —  in  the  middle  of  all  the  riff- 
raff of  the  ceety,  ye  thought  fit  to  cry  out,  '  This 
is  a  damned  murder,  and  my  gorge  rises  at  the  man 
that  haangit  him/  " 

"  No,  sir,  these  were  not  my  words,"  cried 
Archie. 

"  What  were  ye'r  words,  then  ? "  asked  the 
Judge. 

"  I  believe  I  said,  '  I  denounce  it  as  a  murder ! '  " 
said  the  son,  "  I  beg  your  pardon  —  a  God-defy- 
ing murder.  I  have  no  wish  to  conceal  the  truth," 
he  added,  and  looked  his  father  for  a  moment  in  the 
face. 

"  God,  it  would  only  need  that  of  it  next !  "  cried 
Hermiston.  "  There  was  nothing  about  your 
gorge  rising,  then  ?  " 

"  That  was  afterwards,  my  lord,  as  I  was  leaving 
the  Speculative.  I  said  I  had  been  to  see  the  miser- 
able creature  hanged,  and  my  gorge  rose  at  it." 

"  Did  ye,  though  ?  "  said  Hermiston.  "  And  I 
suppose  ye  knew  who  haangit  him?  " 

"  I  was  present  at  the  trial,  I  ought  to  tell  you 
that,  I  ought  to  explain.  I  ask  your  pardon  before- 
hand for  any  expression  that  may  seem  undutiful. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    45 

The  position  in  which  I  stand  is  wretched,"  said 
the  unhappy  hero,  now  fairly  face  to  face  with  the 
business  he  had  chosen.  "  I  have  been  reading 
some  of  your  cases.  I  was  present  while  Jopp 
was  tried.  It  was  a  hideous  business.  Father,  it 
was  a  hideous  thing!  Grant  he  was  vile,  why 
should  you  hunt  him  with  a  vileness  equal  to  his 
own  ?  It  was  done  with  glee  —  that  is  the  word  — 
you  did  it  with  glee;  and  I  looked  on,  God  help 
me !  with  horror." 

"  You  're  a  young  gentleman  that  doesna  ap- 
prove of  caapital  punishment,"  said  Hermiston. 
"  Weel,  I  'm  an  auld  man  that  does.  I  was  glad  to 
get  Jopp  haangit,  and  what  for  would  I  pretend  I 
wasna  ?  You  're  all  for  honesty,  it  seems ;  you 
could  n't  even  steik  your  mouth  on  the  public 
street.  What  for  should  I  steik  mines  upon  the 
Bench,  the  King's  officer,  bearing  the  sword,  a 
dreid  to  evil-doers,  as  I  was  from  the  beginning, 
and  as  I  will  be  to  the  end !  Mair  than  enough  of 
it !  Heedious !  I  never  gave  twa  thoughts  to  hee- 
diousness,  I  have  no  call  to  be  bonny.  I  'm  a  man 
that  gets  through  with  my  day's  business,  and  let 
that  suffice." 

The  ring  of  sarcasm  had  died  out  of  his  voice 
as  he  went  on;  the  plain  words  became  invested 
with  some  of  the  dignity  of  the  justice-seat. 

"  It  would  be  telling  you  if  you  could  say  as 
much,"  the  speaker  resumed.  "  But  ye  cannot. 
Ye  Ve  been  reading  some  of  my  cases,  ye  say. 
But  it  was  not  for  the  law  in  them,  it  was  to  spy 
out  your  faither's  nakedness,  a  fine  employment 


46     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

in  a  son.  You  're  splairging ;  you  're  running  at 
lairge  in  life  like  a  wild  nowt.  It 's  impossible  you 
should  think  any  longer  of  coming  to  the  Bar. 
You  're  not  fit  for  it ;  no  splairger  is.  And  another 
thing :  son  of  mines  or  no  son  of  mines,  you  have 
flung  fylement  in  public  on  one  of  the  Senators  of 
the  Coallege  of  Justice,  and  I  would  make  it  my 
business  to  see  that  ye  were  never  admitted  there 
yourself.  There  is  a  kind  of  a  decency  to  be  ob- 
servit.  Then  comes  the  next  of  it  —  what  am  I 
to  do  with  ye  next  ?  Ye  '11  have  to  find  some  kind 
of  a  trade,  for  I  '11  never  support  ye  in  idleset. 
What  do  ye  fancy  ye  '11  be  fit  for  ?  The  pulpit  ? 
Na,  they  could  never  get  diveenity  into  that  bloack- 
head.  Him  that  the  law  of  man  whammles  is  no 
likely  to  do  muckle  better  by  the  law  of  God  .  What 
would  ye  make  of  hell  ?  Wouldna  your  gorge  rise 
at  that  ?  Na,  there  's  no  room  for  splairgers  under 
the  fower  quarters  of  John  Calvin.  What  else  is 
there?  Speak  up.  Have  ye  got  nothing  of  your 
own  ?  " 

"  Father,  let  me  go  to  the  Peninsula,"  said 
Archie.    "  That 's  all  I  'm  fit  for  —  to  fight." 

"All?  quo'  he!"  returned  the  Judge.  "And 
it  would  be  enough  too,  if  I  thought  it.  But  I  '11 
never  trust  ye  so  near  the  French,  you  that 's  so 
Frenchifeed." 

"  You  do  me  injustice  there,  sir,"  said  Archie. 
"  I  am  loyal ;  I  will  not  boast ;  but  any  interest  I 
may  have  ever  felt  in  the  French " 

"  Have  ye  been  so  loyal  to  me?  "  interrupted  his 
father. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     47 

There  came  no  reply. 

"  I  think  not,"  continued  Hermiston.  "  And  I 
would  send  no  man  to  be  a  servant  to  the  King, 
God  bless  him!  that  has  proved  such  a  shauchling 
son  to  his  own  faither.  You  can  splairge  here  on 
Edinburgh  street,  and  where 's  the  hairm  ?  It 
doesna  play  buff  on  me!  And  if  there  were  twenty 
thousand  eediots  like  yourself,  sorrow  a  Duncan 
Jopp  would  hang  the  fewer.  But  there 's  no 
splairging  possible  in  a  camp ;  and  if  you  were  to 
go  to  it,  you  would  find  out  for  yourself  whether 
Lord  Well'n'ton  approves  of  caapital  punishment 
or  not.  You  a  sodger !  "  he  cried,  with  a  sudden 
burst  of  scorn.  "  Ye  auld  wife,  the  sodgers  would 
bray  at  ye  like  cuddies !  " 

As  at  the  drawing  of  a  curtain,  Archie  was 
aware  of  some  illogicality  in  his  position,  and  stood 
abashed.  He  had  a  strong  impression,  besides,  of 
the  essential  valour  of  the  old  gentleman  before 
him,  how  conveyed  it  would  be  hard  to  say. 

"  Well,  have  ye  no  other  proposeetion  ?  "  said 
my  lord  again. 

"  You  have  taken  this  so  calmly,  sir,  that  I  can- 
not but  stand  ashamed,"  began  Archie. 

"  I  'm  nearer  voamiting,  though,  than  you  would 
fancy,"  said  my  lord. 

The  blood  rose  to  Archie's  brow. 

"  I  Deg  your  pardon,  I  should  have  said  that 
you  had  accepted  my  affront.  ...  I  admit  it  was 
an  affront ;  I  did  not  think  to  apologise,  but  I  do, 
I  ask  your  pardon ;  it  will  not  be  so  again,  I  pass 
you  my  word  of  honour.  ...  I  should  have  said 


48     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

that  I  admired  your  magnanimity  with  —  this  — 
offender,"  Archie  concluded  with  a  gulp. 

"  I  have  no  other  son,  ye  see,"  said  Hermiston. 
"  A  bonny  one  I  have  gotten !  But  I  must  just  do 
the  best  I  can  wi'  him,  and  what  am  I  to  do  ?  If  ye 
had  been  younger,  I  would  have  wheepit  ye  for  this 
rideeculous  exhibeetion.  The  way  it  is,  I  have  just 
to  grin  and  bear.  But  one  thing  is  to  be  clearly 
understood.  As  a  faither,  I  must  grin  and  bear 
it ;  but  if  I  had  been  the  Lord  Advocate  instead  of 
the  Lord  Justice-Clerk,  son  or  no  son,  Mr.  Erchi- 
bald  Weir  would  have  been  in  a  jyle  the  night." 

Archie  was  now  dominated.  Lord  Hermiston 
was  coarse  and  cruel ;  and  yet  the  son  was  aware 
of  a  bloomless  nobility,  an  ungracious  abnegation 
of  the  man's  self  in  the  man's  office.  /  At  every 
word,  this  sense  of  the  greatness  of  Lord  Hermis- 
ton's  spirit  struck  more  home;  and  along  with  it 
that  of  his  own  impotence,  who  had  struck  —  and 
perhaps  basely  struck  —  at  his  own  father,  and 
not  reached  so  far  as  to  have  even  nettled  him. 

"  I  place  myself  in  your  hands  without  reserve," 
he  said. 

"  That 's  the  first  sensible  word  I  've  had  of  ye 
the  night,"  said  Hermiston.  "  I  can  tell  ye,  that 
would  have  been  the  end  of  it,  the  one  way  or  the 
other ;  but  it 's  better  ye  should  come  there  your- 
self, than  what  I  would  have  had  to  hirstle  ye. 
Weel,  by  my  way  of  it  —  and  my  way  is  the  best  — 
there  's  just  the  one  thing  it 's  possible  that  ye  might 
be  with  decency,  and  that 's  a  laird.  Ye  '11  be  out  of 
hairm's  way  at  the  least  of  it.    If  ye  have  to  rowt, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     49 

ye  can  rowt  amang  the  kye;    and  the  maist  feck 
of  the  caapital   punishment   ye  're   like  to   come 
across  '11  be  guddling  trouts.     Now,  I  'm  for  no 
I   idle  lairdies ;   every  man  has  to  work,  if  it 's  only 
j   at  peddling  ballants ;  to  work,  or  to  be  wheeped,  or 
to  be  haangit.    If  I  set  ye  down  at  Hermiston,  I  '11 
have  to  see  you  work  that  place  the  way  it  has 
never  been  workit  yet;    ye  must  ken  about  the 
sheep  like  a  herd ;  ye  must  be  my  grieve  there,  and 
I  '11  see  that  I  gain  by  ye.    Is  that  understood  ?  " 
"  I  will  do  my  best,"  said  Archie. 
"  Well,  then,  I  '11  send  Kirstie  word  the  morn, 
and  ye  can  go  yourself  the  day  after,"  said  Hermis- 
ton.    "  And  just  try  to  be  less  of  an  eediot !  "  he 
concluded,  with  a  freezing  smile,  and  turned  im- 
mediately to  the  papers  on  his  desk. 


CHAPTER   IV 

OPINION   OF  THE  BENCH 

LATE  the  same  night,  after  a  disordered  walk, 
Archie  was  admitted  into  Lord  Glenal- 
-J  mond's  dining-room  where  he  sat,  with  a 
book  upon  his  knee,  beside  three  frugal  coals  of 
fire.  In  his  robes  upon  the  Bench,  Glenalmond 
had  a  certain  air  of  burliness:  plucked  of  these, 
it  was  a  may-pole  of  a  man  that  rose  unsteadily 
from  his  chair  to  give  his  visitor  welcome.  Archie 
had  suffered  much  in  the  last  days,  he  had  suf- 
fered again  that  evening;  his  face  was  white  and 
drawn,  his  eyes  wild  and  dark.  But  Lord  Glen- 
almond greeted  him  without  the  least  mark  of 
surprise  or  curiosity. 

"  Come  in,  come  in,"  said  he.  "  Come  in  and 
take  a  seat.  Carstairs  "  (to  his  servant),  "make 
up  the  fire,  and  then  you  can  bring  a  bit  of  supper," 
and  again  to  Archie,  with  a  very  trivial  accent :  "  I 
was  half  expecting  you,"  he  added. 

"  No  supper,"  said  Archie.  "  It  is  impossible 
that  I  should  eat." 

"  Not  impossible,"  said  the  tall  old  man,  laying 
his  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  "  and,  if  you  will  be- 
lieve me,  necessary." 


WEIR    OF    HERM1STON     51 

"You  know  what  brings  me?"  said  Archie,  as 
soon  as  the  servant  had  left  the  room. 

"  I  have  a  guess,  I  have  a  guess,"  replied  Glen- 
almond.  "  We  will  talk  of  it  presently  —  when 
Carstairs  has  come  and  gone,  and  you  have  had  a 
piece  of  my  good  Cheddar  cheese  and  a  pull  at  the 
porter  tankard :   not  before." 

"  It  is  impossible  I  should  eat,"  repeated 
Archie. 

"Tut,  tut!"  said  Lord  Glenalmond.  "You 
have  eaten  nothing  to-day,  and,  I  venture  to  add, 
nothing  yesterday.  There  is  no  case  that  may 
not  be  made  worse;  this  may  be  a  very  disagree- 
able business,  but  if  you  were  to  fall  sick  and  die, 
it  would  be  still  more  so,  and  for  all  concerned  — 
for  all  concerned." 

"  I  see  you  must  know  all,"  said  Archie. 
"  Where  did  you  hear  it?  " 

"  In  the  mart  of  scandal,  in  the  Parliament 
House,"  said  Glenalmond.  "  It  runs  riot  below 
among  the  Bar  and  the  public,  but  it  sifts  up  to  us 
upon  the  Bench,  and  rumour  has  some  of  her  voices 
even  in  the  divisions." 

Carstairs  returned  at  this  moment,  and  rapidly 
laid  out  a  little  supper ;  during  which  Lord  Glenal- 
mond spoke  at  large  and  a  little  vaguely  on  in- 
different subjects,  so  that  it  might  be  rather  said  of 
him  that  he  made  a  cheerful  noise,  than  that  he 
contributed  to  human  conversation;  and  Archie 
sat  upon  the  other  side,  not  heeding  him,  brooding 
over  his  wrongs  and  errors. 

But  so  soon  as  the  servant  was  gone,  he  broke 


52     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

forth  again  at  once.  "  Who  told  my  father  ?  Who 
dared  to  tell  him  ?    Could  it  have  been  you  ?  " 

"  No,  it  was  not  me,"  said  the  Judge ;  "  although 
—  to  be  quite  frank  with  you,  and  after  I  had  seen 
and  warned  you  —  it  might  have  been  me.  I  believe 
it  was  Glenkindie." 

"  That  shrimp !  "  cried  Archie. 

"  As  you  say,  that  shrimp,"  returned  my  lord ; 
"  although  really  it  is  scarce  a  fitting  mode  of  ex- 
pression for  one  of  the  Senators  of  the  College  of 
Justice.  We  were  hearing  the  parties  in  a  long, 
crucial  case,  before  the  fifteen;  Creech  was  mov- 
ing at  some  length  for  an  infeftment;  when 
I  saw  Glenkindie  lean  forward  to  Hermiston  with 
his  hand  over  his  mouth  and  make  him  a  secret 
communication.  No  one  could  have  guessed  its 
nature  from  your  father;  from  Glenkindie,  yes, 
his  malice  sparkled  out  of  him  a  little  grossly.  But 
your  father,  no.  A  man  of  granite.  The  next 
moment  he  pounced  upon  Creech.  '  Mr  Creech/ 
says  he,  '  I  '11  take  a  look  of  that  sasine,'  and  for 
thirty  minutes  after,"  said  Glenalmond,  with  a 
smile,  "  Messrs.  Creech  and  Co.  were  fighting  a 
pretty  up-hill  battle,  which  resulted,  I  need  hardly 
add,  in  their  total  rout.  The  case  was  dismissed. 
No,  I  doubt  if  ever  I  heard  Hermiston  better  in- 
spired. He  was  literally  rejoicing  in  apicibus 
juris" 

Archie  was  able  to  endure  no  longer.  He  thrust 
his  plate  away  and  interrupted  the  deliberate  and 
insignificant  stream  of  talk.  "  Here,"  he  said, 
"  I  have  made  a  fool  of  myself,  if  I  have  not  made 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     53 

something  worse.  Do  you  judge  between  us  — 
judge  between  a  father  and  a  son.  I  can  speak  to 
you;  it  is  not  like  ...  I  will  tell  you  what  I 
feel  and  what  I  mean  to  do;  and  you  shall  be  the 
judge,"  he  repeated. 

"  I  decline  jurisdiction,"  said  Glenalmond  with 
extreme  seriousness.  "  But,  my  dear  boy,  if  it  will 
do  you  any  good  to  talk,  and  if  it  will  interest  you 
at  all  to  hear  what  I  may  choose  to  say  when  I 
have  heard  you,  I  am  quite  at  your  command.  Let 
an  old  man  say  it,  for  once,  and  not  need  to  blush  1 
I  love  you  like  a  son." 

There  came  a  sudden  sharp  sound  in  Archie's 
throat.  "  Ay,"  he  cried,  "  and  there  it  is !  Love ! 
Like  a  son!  And  how  do  you  think  I  love  my 
father?" 

"  Quietly,  quietly,"  says  my  lord. 

"  I  will  be  very  quiet,"  replied  Archie.  "  And 
I  will  be  baldly  frank.  I  do  not  love  my  father ;  I 
wonder  sometimes  if  I  do  not  hate  him.  There  's 
my  shame;  perhaps  my  sin;  at  least,  and  in  the 
sight  of  God,  not  my  fault.  How  was  I  to  love 
him?  He  has  never  spoken  to  me,  never  smiled 
upon  me;  I  do  not  think  he  ever  touched  me. 
You  know  the  way  he  talks?  You  do  not  talk 
so,  yet  you  can  sit  and  hear  him  without  shudder- 
ing, and  I  cannot.  My  soul  is  sick  when  he  begins 
with  it;  I  could  smite  him  in  the  mouth.  And 
all  that  ■$  nothing.  I  was  at  the  trial  of  this  Jopp. 
You  were  not  there,  but  you  must  have  heard  him 
often ;  the  man  's  notorious  for  it,  for  being  — 
look  at  my  position!  he's  my  father  and  this  is 


54    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

how  I  have  to  speak  of  him  —  notorious  for  being 
a  brute  and  cruel  and  a  coward.  Lord  Glenal- 
mond,  I  give  you  my  word,  when  I  came  out  of  that 
Court,  I  longed  to  die  —  the  shame  of  it  was  be- 
yond my  strength :  but  I  —  I "  he  rose  from 

his  seat  and  began  to  pace  the  room  in  a  disorder. 
"  Well,  who  am  I  ?  A  boy,  who  have  never  been 
tried,  have  never  done  anything  except  this  two- 
penny impotent  folly  with  my  father.  But  I  tell 
you,  my  lord,  and  I  know  myself,  I  am  at  least  that 
kind  of  a  man  —  or  that  kind  of  a  boy,  if  you  pre- 
fer it  —  that  I  could  die  in  torments  rather  than 
that  any  one  should  suffer  as  that  scoundrel  suf- 
fered. Well,  and  what  have  I  done  ?  I  see  it  now. 
I  have  made  a  fool  of  myself,  as  I  said  in  the  begin- 
ning ;  and  I  have  gone  back,  and  asked  my  father's 
pardon,  and  placed  myself  wholly  in  his  hands  — 
and  he  has  sent  me  to  Hermiston,"  with  a  wretched 
smile,  "  for  life,  I  suppose  —  and  what  can  I  say? 
he  strikes  me  as  having  done  quite  right,  and  let 
me  off  better  than  I  had  deserved." 

"  My  poor,  dear  boy ! "  observed  Glenalmond. 
"  My  poor  dear  and,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so, 
very  foolish  boy!  You  are  only  discovering  where 
you  are ;  to  one  of  your  temperament,  or  of  mine, 
a  painful  discovery.  The  world  was  not  made  for 
us ;  it  was  made  for  ten  hundred  millions  of  men, 
all  different  from  each  other  and  from  us ;  there  's 
no  royal  road  there,  we  just  have  to  sclamber  and 
tumble.  Don't  think  that  I  am  at  all  disposed  to 
be  surprised;  don't  suppose  that  I  ever  think  of 
blaming  you ;   indeed  I  rather  admire !    But  there 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    55 

fall  to  be  offered  one  or  two  observations  on  the 
case  which  occur  to  me  and  which  (if  you  will 
listen  to  them  dispassionately)  may  be  the  means 
of  inducing  you  to  view  the  matter  more  calmly. 
First  of  all,  I  cannot  acquit  you  of  a  good  deal  of 
what  is  called  intolerance.  You  seem  to  have  been 
very  much  offended  because  your  father  talks  a 
little  sculduddery  after  dinner,  which  it  is  perfectly 
licit  for  him  to  do,  and  which  (although  I  am  not 
very  fond  of  it  myself)  appears  to  be  entirely  an 
affair  of  taste.  Your  father,  I  scarcely  like  to  re- 
mind you,  since  it  is  so  trite  a  commonplace,  is 
older  than  yourself.  At  least,  he  is  major  and  sui 
juris,  and  may  please  himself  in  the  matter  of  his 
conversation.  And,  do  you  know,  I  wonder  if  he 
might  not  have  as  good  an  answer  against  you 
and  me?  We  say  we  sometimes  find  him  coarse, 
but  I  suspect  he  might  retort  that  he  finds  us  always 
dull.     Perhaps  a  relevant  exception.'* 

He  beamed  on  Archie,  but  no  smile  could  be 
elicited. 

"  And  now,"  proceeded  the  Judge,  "  for  '  Ar- 
chibald on  Capital  Punishment.'  This  is  a  very 
plausible  academic  opinion ;  of  course  I  do  not  and 
I  cannot  hold  it ;  but  that 's  not  to  say  that  many 
able  and  excellent  persons  have  not  done  so  in  the 
past.  Possibly,  in  the  past  also,  I  may  have  a  little 
dipped  myself  in  the  same  heresy.  My  third  client, 
or  possibly  my  fourth,  was  the  means  of  a  return  in 
my  opinions.  I  never  saw  the  man  I  more  believed 
in;  I  would  have  put  my  hand  in  the  fire,  I 
would  have  gone  to  the  cross  for  him;   and  when 


56     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

it  came  to  trial  he  was  gradually  pictured  before 
me,  by  undeniable  probation,  in  the  light  of  so 
gross,  so  cold-blooded,  and  so  black-hearted  a  vil- 
lain, that  I  had  a  mind  to  have  cast  my  brief  upon 
the  table.  I  was  then  boiling  against  the  man  with 
even. a  more  tropical  temperature  than  I  had  been 
boiling  for  him.  But  I  said  to  myself :  '  No,  you 
have  taken  up  his  case;  and  because  you  have 
changed  your  mind  it  must  not  be  suffered  to  let 
drop.  All  that  rich  tide  of  eloquence  that  you  pre- 
pared last  night  with  so  much  enthusiasm  is  out 
of  place,  and  yet  you  must  not  desert  him,  you 
must  say  something.'  So  I  said  something,  and  I 
got  him  off.  It  made  my  reputation.  But  an  ex- 
perience of  that  kind  is  formative.  A  man  must 
not  bring  his  passions  to  the  Bar  —  or  to  the 
Bench." 

This  story  had  slightly  rekindled  Archie's  in- 
terest. "  I  could  never  deny,"  he  began  —  "I 
mean  I  can  conceive  that  some  men  would  be  bet- 
ter dead.  But  who  are  we  to  know  all  the  springs 
of  God's  unfortunate  creatures?  Who  are  we  to 
trust  ourselves  where  it  seems  that  God  himself 
must  think  twice  before  He  treads,  and  to  do  it 
with  delight?  Yes,  with  delight.  Tigris  ut 
aspera" 

"  Perhaps  not  a  pleasant  spectacle,"  said  Glen- 
almond.  "  And  yet,  do  you  know,  I  think  some- 
how a  great  one." 

"  I  've  had  a  long  talk  with  him  to-night,"  said 
Archie. 

"  I  was  supposing  so,"  said  Glenalmond. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     57 

"  And  he  struck  me  —  I  cannot  deny  that  he 
struck  me  as  something  very  big,"  pursued  the 
son.  "  Yes,  he  is  big.  He  never  spoke  about  him- 
self; only  about  me.  I  suppose  I  admired  him. 
The  dreadful  part " 

"  Suppose  we  did  not  talk  about  that,"  inter- 
rupted Glenalmond.  "  You  know  it  very  well,  it 
cannot  in  any  way  help  that  you  should  brood  upon 
it,  and  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  you  and  I  — 
who  are  a  pair  of  sentimentalists  —  are  quite  good 
judges  of  plain  men." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Archie. 

"Fair  judges,  I  mean,"  replied  Glenalmond. 
"Can  we  be  just  to  them?  Do  we  not  ask  too 
much  ?  There  was  a  word  of  yours  just  now  that 
impressed  me  a  little  when  you  asked  me  who  we 
were  to  know  all  the  springs  of  God's  unfortunate 
creatures.  You  applied  that,  as  I  understood,  to 
capital  cases  only.  But  does  it  —  I  ask  myself  — 
does  it  not  apply  all  through?  Is  it  any  less  diffi- 
cult to  judge  of  a  good  man  or  of  a  half-good 
man,  than  of  the  worst  criminal  at  the  Bar?  And 
may  not  each  have  relevant  excuses  ?  " 

"  Ah,  but  we  do  not  talk  of  punishing  the  good," 
cried  Archie. 

"  No,  we  do  not  talk  of  it,"  said  Glenalmond. 
"  But  I  think  we  do  it.  Your  father,  for 
instance." 

"  You  think  I  have  punished  him  ? "  cried 
Archie. 

Lord  Glenalmond  bowed  his  head. 

"I   think   I   have,"   said   Archie.     "And   the 


58     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

worst  is,  I  think  he  feels  it!  How  much,  who  can 
tell,  with  such  a  being?    But  I  think  he  does." 

"  And  I  am  sure  of  it,"  said  Glenalmond. 

"  Has  he  spoken  to  you,  then?  "  cried  Archie. 

"  Oh,  no,"  replied  the  Judge. 

"  I  tell  you  honestly,"  said  Archie,  "  I  want  to 
make  it  up  to  him.  I  will  go,  I  have  already 
pledged  myself  to  go,  to  Hermiston.  That  was  to 
him.  And  now  I  pledge  myself  to  you,  in  the  sight 
of  God,  that  I  will  close  my  mouth  on  capital 
punishment  and  all  other  subjects  where  our  views 
may  clash,  for  —  how  long  shall  I  say  ?  when  shall 
I  have  sense  enough  ?  —  ten  years.    Is  that  well  ?  " 

"  It  is  well,"  said  my  lord. 

"  As  far  as  it  goes,"  said  Archie.  "  It  is 
enough  as  regards  myself,  it  is  to  lay  down  enough 
of  my  conceit.  But  as  regards  him,  whom  I  have 
publicly  insulted  ?  What  am  I  to  do  to  him  ?  How 
do  you  pay  attentions  to  a  —  an  Alp  like  that  ?  " 

*  Only  in  one  way,"  replied  Glenalmond. 
"  Only  by  obedience,  punctual,  prompt,  and 
scrupulous." 

"  And  I  promise  that  he  shall  have  it,"  answered 
Archie.    "  I  offer  you  my  hand  in  pledge  of  it." 

"  And  I  take  your  hand  as  a  solemnity,"  re- 
plied the  Judge.  "  God  bless  you,  my  dear,  and 
enable  you  to  keep  your  promise.  God  guide  you 
in  the  true  way,  and  spare  your  days,  and  preserve 
to  you  your  honest  heart."  At  that,  he  kissed 
the  young  man  upon  the  forehead  in  a  gracious, 
distant,  antiquated  way;  and  instantly  launched, 
with   a   marked   change   of   voice,    into   another 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     59 

subject.  "  And  now,  let  us  replenish  the  tankard ; 
and  I  believe,  if  you  will  try  my  Cheddar  again, 
you  would  find  you  had  a  better  appetite.  The 
Court  has  spoken,  and  the  case  is  dismissed." 

"  No,  there  is  one  thing  I  must  say,"  cried 
Archie.  "  I  must  say  it  in  justice  to  himself.  I 
know  —  I  believe  faithfully,  slavishly,  after  our 
talk  —  he  will  never  ask  me  anything  unjust.  I 
am  proud  to  feel  it,  that  we  have  that  much  in 
common,  I  am  proud  to  say  it  to  you." 

The  Judge,  with  shining  eyes,  raised  his  tank- 
ard. "  And  I  think  perhaps  that  we  might  permit 
ourselves  a  toast,"  said  he.  "  I  should  like  to  pro- 
pose the  health  of  a  man  very  different  from  me 
and  very  much  my  superior  —  a  man  from  whom 
I  have  often  differed,  who  has  often  (in  the  trivial 
expression)  rubbed  me  the  wrong  way,  but  whom 
I  have  never  ceased  to  respect  and,  I  may  add,  to  be 
not  a  little  afraid  of.    Shall  I  give  you  his  name?  " 

"  The  Lord  Justice-Clerk,  Lord  Hermiston," 
said  Archie,  almost  with  gaiety;  and  the  pair 
drank  the  toast  deeply. 

It  was  not  precisely  easy  to  re-establish,  after 
these  emotional  passages,  the  natural  flow  of  con- 
versation. But  the  Judge  eked  out  what  was  want- 
ing with  kind  looks,  produced  his  snuff-box  (which 
was  very  rarely  seen)  to  fill  in  a  pause,  and  at  last, 
despairing  of  any  further  social  success,  was  upon 
the  point  of  getting  down  a  book  to  read  a  favour- 
ite passage,  when  there  came  a  rather  startling 
summons  at  the  front  door,  and  Carstairs  ushered 
in   my   Lord    Glenkindie,    hot    from    a   midnight 


So    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

supper.  I  am  not  aware  that  Glenkindie  was 
ever  a  beautiful  object,  being  short,  and  gross- 
bodied,  and  with  an  expression  of  sensuality  com- 
parable to  a  bear's.  At  that  moment,  coming  in 
hissing  from  many  potations,  with  a  flushed  coun- 
tenance and  blurred  eyes,  he  was  strikingly 
contrasted  with  the  tall,  pale,  kingly  figure  of  Glen- 
almond.  A  rush  of  confused  thought  came  over 
Archie  —  of  shame  that  this  was  one  of  his 
father's  elect  friends;  of  pride,  that  at  the  least 
of  it  Hermiston  could  carry  his  liquor ;  and  last  of 
all,  of  rage,  that  he  should  have  here  under  his 
eye  the  man  that  had  betrayed  him.  And  then 
that  too  passed  away;  and  he  sat  quiet,  biding 
his  opportunity. 

The  tipsy  Senator  plunged  at  once  into  an  expla- 
nation with  Glenalmond.  There  was  a  point  re- 
served yesterday,  he  had  been  able  to  make  neither 
head  nor  tail  of  it,  and  seeing  lights  in  the  house, 
he  had  just  dropped  in  for  a  glass  of  porter  —  and 
at  this  point  he  became  aware  of  the  third  person. 
Archie  saw  the  cod's  mouth  and  the  blunt  lips  of 
Glenkindie  gape  at  him  for  a  moment,  and  the 
recognition  twinkle  in  his  eyes. 

"  Who  's  this?  "  said  he.  "  What?  is  this  pos- 
sibly you,  Don  Quickshot?  And  how  are  ye? 
And  how  's  your  father  ?  And  what 's  all  this  we 
hear  of  you  ?  It  seems  you  're  a  most  extraordi- 
nary leveller,  by  all  tales.  No  king,  no  parliaments, 
and  your  gorge  rises  at  the  macers,  worthy  men! 
Hoot,  too!  Dear,  dear  me!  Your  father's  son 
too!     Most  rideekulous !  " 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     61 

Archie  was  on  his  feet,  flushing  a  little  at  the 
reappearance  of  his  unhappy  figure  of  speech,  but 
perfectly  self-possessed.  "  My  lord  —  and  you, 
Lord  Glenalmond,  my  dear  friend,"  he  began, 
"  this  is  a  happy  chance  for  me,  that  I  can  make 
my  confession  and  offer  my  apologies  to  two  of 
you  at  once.,, 

"  Ah,  but  I  don't  know  about  that.  Confession  ? 
It  '11  be  judeecial,  my  young  friend,"  cried  the 
jocular  Glenkindie.  "  And  I  'm  afraid  to  listen  to 
ye.    Think  if  ye  were  to  make  me  a  coanvert !  " 

"  If  you  would  allow  me,  my  lord,"  returned 
Archie,  "  what  I  have  to  say  is  very  serious  to  me ; 
and  be  pleased  to  be  humourous  after  I  am  gone." 

"  Remember,  I  '11  hear  nothing  against  the 
macers !  "  put  in  the  incorrigible  Glenkindie. 

But  Archie  continued  as  though  he  had  not 
spoken.  "  I  have  played,  both  yesterday  and  to- 
day, a  part  for  which  I  can  only  offer  the  excuse  of 
youth.  I  was  so  unwise  as  to  go  to  an  execution; 
it  seems,  I  made  a  scene  at  the  gallows;  not  con- 
tent with  which,  I  spoke  the  same  night  in  a  college 
society  against  capital  punishment.  This  is  the 
extent  of  what  I  have  done,  and  in  case  you  hear 
more  alleged  against  me,  I  protest  my  innocence. 
I  have  expressed  my  regret  already  to  my  father, 
who  is  so  good  as  to  pass  my  conduct  over  —  in  a 
degree,  and  upon  the  condition  that  I  am  to  leave 
my  law  studies."  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  V 

WINTER   ON  THE   MOORS 
I.    AT   HERMISTON 

r  "^HE  road  to  Hermiston  runs  for  a  great 
part  of  the  way  up  the  valley  of  a  stream, 
JL  a  favourite  with  anglers  and  with  midges, 
full  of  falls  and  pools,  and  shaded  by  willows  and 
natural  woods  of  birch.  Here  and  there,  but  at 
great  distances,  a  by-way  branches  off,  and  a  gaunt 
farmhouse  may  be  descried  above  in  a  fold  of  the 
hill ;  but  the  more  part  of  the  time,  the  road  would 
be  quite  empty  of  passage  and  the  hills  of  habita- 
tion. Hermiston  parish  is  one  of  the  least  popu- 
lous in  Scotland;  and,  by  the  time  you  came  that 
length,  you  would  scarce  be  surprised  at  the  inimi- 
table smallness  of  the  kirk,  a  dwarfish,  ancient  place 
seated  for  fifty,  and  standing  in  a  green  by  the 
burnside  among  twoscore  gravestones.  The  manse 
close  by,  although  no  more  than  a  cottage,  is 
surrounded  by  the  brightness  of  a  flower-garden 
and  the  straw  roofs  of  bees;  and  the  whole  col- 
ony, kirk  and  manse,  garden  and  graveyard,  finds 
harbourage  in  a  grove  of  rowans,  and  is  all  the  year 
round  in  a  great  silence  broken  only  by  the  drone 
of  the  bees,  the  tinkle  of  the  burn,  and  the  bell 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     63 

on  Sundays.  A  mile  beyond  the  kirk  the  road 
leaves  the  valley  by  a  precipitous  ascent,  and  brings 
you  a  little  after  to  the  place  of  Hermiston,  where 
it  conies  to  an  end  in  the  back-yard  before  the 
coach-house.  All  beyond  and  about  is  the  great 
field  of  the  hills;  the  plover,  the  curlew,  and  the 
lark  cry  there;  the  wind  blows  as  it  blows  in  a 
ship's  rigging,  hard  and  cold  and  pure;  and  the 
hilltops  huddle  one  behind  another  like  a  herd  of 
cattle  into  the  sunset*-* 

The  house  was  sixty  years  old,  unsightly,  com- 
fortable; a  farmyard  and  a  kitchen  garden  on  the 
left,  with  a  fruit  wall  where  little  hard  green  pears 
came  to  their  maturity  about  the  end  of  October. 

The  policy  (as  who  should  say  the  park)  was 
of  some  extent,  but  very  ill  reclaimed ;  heather  and 
moorfowl  had  crossed  the  boundary  wall  and 
spread  and  roosted  within;  and  it  would  have 
tasked  a  landscape  gardener  to  say  where  policy 
ended  and  unpolicied  nature  began.  My  lord  had 
been  led  by  the  influence  of  Mr.  Sheriff  Scott  into 
a  considerable  design  of  planting ;  many  acres  were 
accordingly  set  out  with  fir,  and  the  little  feathery 
besoms  gave  a  false  scale  and  lent  a  strange  air  of 
a  toy-shop  to  the  moors.  A  great,  rooty  sweetness 
of  bogs  was  in  the  air,  and  at  all  seasons  an  infinite 
melancholy  piping  of  hill  birds.  Standing  so  high 
and  with  so  little  shelter,  it  was  a  cold,  exposed 
house,  splashed  by  showers,  drenched  by  continu- 
ous rains  that  made  the  gutters  to  spout,  beaten 
upon  and  buffeted  by  all  the  winds  of  heaven ;  and 
the  prospect  would  be  often  black  with  tempest, 


64    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

and  often  white  with  the  snows  of  winter.  But  the 
house  was  wind  and  weather  proof,  the  hearths 
were  kept  bright,  and  the  rooms  pleasant  with  live 
fires  of  peat;  and  Archie  might  sit  of  an  evening 
and  hear  the  squalls  bugle  on  the  moorland,  and 
watch  the  fire  prosper  in  the  earthy  fuel,  and  the 
smoke  winding  up  the  chimney,  and  drink  deep  of 
the  pleasures  of  shelter. 

Solitary  as  the  place  was,  Archie  did  not  want 
neighbours.  Every  night,  if  he  chose,  he  might  go 
down  to  the  manse  and  share  a  "  brewst  "  of  toddy 
with  the  minister  —  a  hare-brained  ancient  gentle- 
man, long  and  light  and  still  active,  though  his 
knees  were  loosened  with  age,  and  his  voice  broke 
continually  in  childish  trebles  —  and  his  lady  wife, 
a  heavy,  comely  dame,  without  a  word  to  say  for 
herself  beyond  good-even  and  good-day.  Harum- 
scarum,  clodpole  young  lairds  of  the  neighbour- 
hood paid  him  the  compliment  of  a  visit.  Young 
Hay  of  Romanes  rode  down  to  call,  on  his  crop- 
eared  pony ;  young  Pringle  of  Drumanno  came  up 
on  his  bony  grey.  Hay  remained  on  the  hospi- 
table field,  and  must  be  carried  to  bed ;  Pringle  got 
somehow  to  his  saddle  about  3  a.  m.,  and  (as 
Archie  stood  with  the  lamp  on  the  upper  doorstep) 
lurched,  uttered  a  senseless  view  halloa,  and  van- 
ished out  of  the  small  circle  of  illumination  like 
a  wraith.  Yet  a  minute  or  two  longer  the  clat- 
ter of  his  break-neck  flight  was  audible,  then  it  was 
cut  off  by  the  intervening  steepness  of  the  hill ;  and 
again,  a  great  while  after,  the  renewed  beating  of 
phantom    horse-hoofs,    far    in   the   valley   of   the 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     65 

Hermiston,  showed  that  the  horse  at  least,  if  not  his 
rider,  was  still  on  the  homeward  way. 

There  was  a  Tuesday  club  at  the  "  Crosskeys  " 
in  Crossmichael,  where  the  young  bloods  of  the 
country-side  congregated  and  drank  deep  on  a  per- 
centage of  the  expense,  so  that  he  was  left  gainer 
who  should  have  drunk  the  most.  Archie  had  no 
great  mind  to  this  diversion,  but  he  took  it  like  a 
duty  laid  upon  him,  went  with  a  decent  regularity, 
did  his  manfullest  with  the  liquor,  held  up  his  head 
in  the  local  jests,  and  got  home  again  and  was  able 
to  put  up  his  horse,  to  the  admiration  of  Kirstie 
and  the  lass  that  helped  her.  He  dined  at  Driffel, 
supped  at  Windielaws.  He  went  to  the  new  year's 
ball  at  Huntsfield  and  was  made  welcome,  and 
thereafter  rode  to  hounds  with  my  Lord  Muirfell, 
upon  whose  name,  as  that  of  a  legitimate  Lord  of 
Parliament,  in  a  work  so  full  of  Lords  of  Session, 
my  pen  should  pause  reverently.  Yet  the  same 
fate  attended  him  here  as  in  Edinburgh.  The  habit 
of  solitude  tends  to  perpetuate  itself,  and  an  aus- 
terity of  which  he  was  quite  unconscious,  and  a 
pride  which  seemed  arrogance,  and  perhaps  was 
chiefly  shyness,  discouraged  and  offended  his  new 
companions.  Hay  did  not  return  more  than  twice, 
Pringle  never  at  all,  and  there  came  a  time  when 
Archie  even  desisted  from  the  Tuesday  Club,  and 
became  in  all  things  —  what  he  had  had  the  name 
of  almost  from  the  first  —  the  Recluse  of  Hermis- 
ton. High-nosed  Miss  Pringle  of  Drumanno  and 
high-stepping  Miss  Marshall  of  the  Mains  were 
understood  to  have  had  a  difference  of  opinion  about 

5 


66    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

him  the  day  after  the  ball  —  he  was  none  the  wiser, 
he  could  not  suppose  himself  to  be  remarked  by 
these  entrancing  ladies.  At  the  ball  itself  my  Lord 
Muirfell's  daughter,  the  Lady  Flora,  spoke  to  him 
twice,  and  the  second  time  with  a  touch  of  appeal, 
so  that  her  colour  rose  and  her  voice  trembled  a 
little  in  his  ear,  like  a  passing  grace  in  music.  He 
stepped  back  with  a  heart  on  fire,  coldly  and  not 
ungracefully  excused  himself,  and  a  little  after 
watched  her  dancing  with  young  Drumanno  of  the 
empty  laugh,  and  was  harrowed  at  the  sight,  and 
raged  to  himself  that  this  was  a  world  in  which  it 
was  given  to  Drumanno  to  please,  and  to  himself 
only  to  stand  aside  and  envy.  He  seemed  excluded, 
as  of  right,  from  the  favour  of  such  society  — 
seemed  to  extinguish  mirth  wherever  he  came,  and 
was  quick  to  feel  the  wound,  and  desist,  and  retire 
into  solitude.  If  he  had  but  understood  the  figure 
he  presented,  and  the  impression  he  made  on  these 
bright  eyes  and  tender  hearts;  if  he  had  but 
guessed  that  the  Recluse  of  Hermiston,  young, 
graceful,  well  spoken,  but  always  cold,  stirred  the 
maidens  of  the  county  with  the  charm  of  Byronism 
when  Byronism  was  new,  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  his  destiny  might  not  even  yet  have  been 
modified.  It  may  be  questioned,  and  I  think  it 
should  be  doubted.  It  was  in  his  horoscope  to  be 
parsimonious  of  pain  to  himself,  or  of  the  chance  of 
pain,  even  to  the  avoidance  of  any  opportunity  of 
pleasure;  to  have  a  Roman  sense  of  duty,  an  in- 
stinctive aristocracy  of  manners  and  taste;  to  be 
the  son  of  Adam  Weir  and  Jean  Rutherford. 


WEIR    OF    HER  MIS  TON     67 


II.   KIRSTIE 

Kirstie  was  now  over  fifty,  and  might  have  sat 
to  a  sculptor.  Long  of  limb  and  still  light  of  foot, 
deep-breasted,  robust-loined,  her  golden  hair  not 
yet  mingled  with  any  trace  of  silver,  the  years  had 
but  caressed  and  embellished  her.  By  the  lines  of 
a  rich  and  vigorous  maternity,  she  seemed  destined 
to  be  the  bride  of  heroes  and  the  mother  of  their 
children;  and  behold,  by  the  iniquity  of  fate,  she 
had  passed  through  her  youth  alone,  and  drew  near 
to  the  confines  of  age,  a  childless  woman.  The 
tender  ambitions  that  she  had  received  at  birth  had 
been,  by  time  and  disappointment,  diverted  into  a 
certain  barren  zeal  of  industry  and  fury  of  interfer- 
ence. She  carried  her  thwarted  ardours  into  house- 
work, she  washed  floors  with  her  empty  heart.  If 
she  could  not  win  the  love  of  one  with  love,  she 
must  dominate  all  by  her  temper.  Hasty,  wordy, 
and  wrathful,  she  had  a  drawn  quarrel  with  most 
of  her  neighbours,  and  with  the  others  not  much 
more  than  armed  neutrality.  The  grieve's  wife 
had  been  "  sneisty  " ;  the  sister  of  the  gardener, 
who  kept  house  for  him,  had  shown  herself  "  up- 
sitten  " ;  and  she  wrote  to  Lord  Hermiston  about 
once  a  year  demanding  the  discharge  of  the 
offenders,  and  justifying  the  demand  by  much 
wealth  of  detail.  For  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
the  quarrel  rested  with  the  wife  and  did  not  take  in 
the  husband  also  —  or  with  the  gardener's  sister, 
and  did  not  speedily  include  the  gardener  himself. 


68     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

As  the  upshot  of  all  this  petty  quarrelling  and 
intemperate  speech,  she  was  practically  excluded 
(like  a  lightkeeper  on  his  tower)  from  the  comforts 
of  human  association;  except  with  her  own  in- 
door drudge,  who,  being  but  a  lassie  and  entirely 
at  her  mercy,  must  submit  to  the  shifty  weather  of 
"  the  mistress's  "  moods  without  complaint,  and  be 
willing  to  take  buffets  or  caresses  according  to 
the  temper  of  the  hour.  To  Kirstie,  thus  situate 
and  in  the  Indian  summer  of  her  heart,  which 
was  slow  to  submit  to  age,  the  gods  sent  this 
equivocal  good  thing  of  Archie's  presence.  She 
had  known  him  in  the  cradle  and  paddled  him  when 
he  misbehaved;  and  yet,  as  she  had  not  so  much 
as  set  eyes  on  him  since  he  was  eleven  and  had  his 
last  serious  illness,  the  tall,  slender,  refined,  and 
rather  melancholy  young  gentleman  of  twenty 
came  upon  her  with  the  shock  of  a  new  acquaint- 
ance. He  was  "  Young  Hermiston,"  "  the  laird 
himsel'  " ;  he  had  an  air  of  distinctive  superiority, 
a  cold  straight  glance  of  his  black  eyes,  that 
abashed  the  woman's  tantrums  in  the  beginning, 
and  therefore  the  possibility  of  any  quarrel  was 
excluded.  He  was  new,  and  therefore  immediately 
aroused  her  curiosity;  he  was  reticent,  and  kept 
it  awake.  And  lastly  he  was  dark  and  she  fair, 
and  he  was  male  and  she  female,  the  everlasting 
fountains  of  interest. 

Her  feeling  partook  of  the  loyalty  of  a  clans- 
woman,  the  hero-worship  of  a  maiden  aunt,  and  the 
idolatry  due  to  a  god.  No  matter  what  he  had 
asked  of  her,  ridiculous  or  tragic,  she  would  have 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     69 

done  it  and  joyed  to  do  it.  Her  passion,  for  it 
was  nothing  less,  entirely  filled  her.  It  was  a  rich 
physical  pleasure  to  make  his  bed  or  light  his  lamp 
for  him  when  he  was  absent,  to  pull  off  his  wet 
boots  or  wait  on  him  at  dinner  when  he  returned. 
A  young  man  who  should  have  so  doted  on  the 
idea,  moral  and  physical,  of  any  woman,  might  be 
properly  described  as  being  in  love,  head  and  heels, 
and  would  have  behaved  himself  accordingly. 
But  Kirstie  —  though  her  heart  leaped  at  his 
coming  footsteps  —  though,  when  he  patted  her 
shoulder,  her  face  brightened  for  the  day  — had 
not  a  hope  or  thought  beyond  the  present  moment 
and  its  perpetuation  to  the  end  of  time.  Till  the 
end  of  time  she  would  have  had  nothing  altered, 
but  still  continue  delightedly  to  serve  her  idol,  and 
be  repaid  (say  twice  in  the  month)  with  a  clap  on 
the  shoulder. 

I  have  said  her  heart  leaped  —  it  is  the  accepted 
phrase.  But  rather,  when  she  was  alone  in  any 
chamber  of  the  house,  and  heard  his  foot  passing 
on  the  corridors,  something  in  her  bosom  rose 
slowly  until  her  breath  was  suspended,  and  as 
slowly  fell  again  with  a  deep  sigh,  when  the 
steps  had  passed  and  she  was  disappointed  of  her 
eyes'  desire.  This  perpetual  hunger  and  thirst  of 
his  presence  kept  her  all  day  on  the  alert.  When 
he  went  forth  at  morning,  she  would  stand  and 
follow  him  with  admiring  looks.  As  it  grew  late 
and  drew  to  the  time  of  his  return,  she  would  steal 
forth  to  a  corner  of  the  policy  wall  and  be  seen 
standing  there  sometimes  by  the  hour  together, 


7o    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

gazing  with  shaded  eyes,  waiting  the  exquisite  and 
barren  pleasure  of  his  view  a  mile  off  on  the  moun- 
tains. When  at  night  she  had  trimmed  and 
gathered  the  fire,  turned  down  his  bed,  and  laid  out 
his  night-gear  —  when  there  was  no  more  to  be 
done  for  the  king's  pleasure,  but  to  remember  him 
fervently  in  her  usually  very  tepid  prayers,  and  go 
to  bed  brooding  upon  his  perfections,  his  future 
career,  and  what  she  should  give  him  the  next  day 
for  dinner  —  there  still  remained  before  her  one 
more  opportunity ;  she  was  still  to  take  in  the  tray 
and  say  good-night.  Sometimes  Archie  would 
glance  up  from  his  book  with  a  preoccupied  nod 
and  a  perfunctory  salutation  which  was  in  truth 
a  dismissal;  sometimes  —  and  by  degrees  more 
often  —  the  volume  would  be  laid  aside,  he  would 
meet  her  coming  with  a  look  of  relief ;  and  the  con- 
versation would  be  engaged,  last  out  the  supper, 
and  be  prolonged  till  the  small  hours  by  the  waning 
fire.  It  was  no  wonder  that  Archie  was  fond  of 
company  after  his  solitary  days ;  and  Kirstie,  upon 
her  side,  exerted  all  the  arts  of  her  vigorous  nature 
to  ensnare  his  attention.  She  would  keep  back 
some  piece  of  news  during  dinner  to  be  fired  off 
with  the  entrance  of  the  supper  tray,  and  form  as 
it  were  the  lever  de  rideau  of  the  evening's  enter- 
tainment. Once  he  had  heard  her  tongue  wag,  she 
made  sure  of  the  result.  From  one  subject  to 
another  she  moved  by  insidious  transitions,  fearing 
the  least  silence,  fearing  almost  to  give  him  time  for 
an  answer  lest  it  should  slip  into  a  hint  of  separa- 
tion.   Like  so  many  people  of  her  class,  she  was  a 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     71 

brave  narrator;  her  place  was  on  the  hearth-rug 
and  she  made  it  a  rostrum,  miming  her  stories  as 
she  told  them,  fitting  them  with  vital  detail,  spin- 
ning them  out  with  endless  "  quo'  he's "  and 
"  quo'  she's,"  her  voice  sinking  into  a  whisper  over 
the  supernatural  or  the  horrific;  until  she  would 
suddenly  spring  up  in  affected  surprise,  and  point- 
ing to  the  clock,  "  Mercy,  Mr.  Archie !  "  she  would 
say,  "  Whatten  a  time  o'  night  is  this  of  it !  God 
forgive  me  for  a  daft  wife!"  So  it  befell,  by 
good  management,  that  she  was  not  only  the  first 
to  begin  these  nocturnal  conversations,  but  inva- 
riably the  first  to  break  them  off;  so  she  managed 
to  retire  and  not  to  be  dismissed. 


III.     A  BORDER   FAMILY 

Such  an  unequal  intimacy  has  never  been  un- 
common in  Scotland,  where  the  clan  spirit  sur- 
vives; where  the  servant  tends  to  spend  her  life 
in  the  same  service,  a  helpmeet  at  first,  then  a 
tyrant,  and  at  last  a  pensioner ;  where,  besides,  she 
is  not  necessarily  destitute  of  the  pride  of  birth,  but 
is,  perhaps,  like  Kirstie,  a  connection  of  her  mas- 
ter's, and  at  least  knows  the  legend  of  her  own 
family,  and  may  count  kinship  with  some  illus- 
trious dead.  For  that  is  the  mark  of  the  Scot  of 
all  classes:  that  he  stands  in  an  attitude  towards 
the  past  unthinkable  to  Englishmen,  and  remem- 
bers and  cherishes  the  memory  of  his  forbears, 
good  or  bad ;  and  there  burns  alive  in  him  a  sense 


72     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

of  identity  with  the  dead  even  to  the  twentieth  gen- 
eration. No  more  characteristic  instance  could  be 
found  than  in  the  family  of  Kirstie  Elliott.  They 
were  all,  and  Kirstie  the  first  of  all,  ready  and  eager 
to  pour  forth  the  particulars  of  their  genealogy, 
embellished  with  every  detail  that  memory  had 
handed  down  or  fancy  fabricated;  and,  behold! 
from  every  ramification  of  that  tree  there  dangled 
a  halter.  The  Elliotts  themselves  have  had  a 
chequered  history;  but  these  Elliotts  deduced,  be- 
sides, from  three  of  the  most  unfortunate  of  the 
border  clans  —  the  Nicksons,  the  Ellwalds,  and  the 
Crozers.  One  ancestor  after  another  might  be  seen 
appearing  a  moment  out  of  the  rain  and  the  hill 
mist  upon  his  furtive  business,  speeding  home,  per- 
haps, with  a  paltry  booty  of  lame  horses  and  lean 
kine,  or  squealing  and  dealing  death  in  some  moor- 
land feud  of  the  ferrets  and  the  wildcats.  One  after 
another  closed  his  obscure  adventures  in  mid-air, 
triced  up  to  the  arm  of  the  royal  gibbet  or  the 
Baron's  dule-tree.  For  the  rusty  blunderbuss  of 
Scots  criminal  justice,  which  usually  hurts  nobody 
but  jurymen,  became  a  weapon  of  precision  for  the 
Nicksons,  the  Ellwalds,  and  the  Crozers.  The  ex- 
hilaration of  their  exploits  seemed  to  haunt  the 
memories  of  their  descendants  alone,  and  the  shame 
to  be  forgotten.  Pride  glowed  in  their  bosoms 
to  publish  their  relationship  to  "  Andrew  Ellwald  of 
the  Laverockstanes,  called  -  Unchancy  Dand,'  who 
was  justifeed  wi'  seeven  mair  of  the  same  name  at 
Jeddart  in  the  days  of  King  James  the  Sax."  In 
all  this  tissue  of  crime  and  misfortune,  the  Elliotts 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    73 

of  Cauldstaneslap  had  one  boast  which  must  appear 
legitimate:  the  males  were  gallows-birds,  born 
outlaws,  petty  thieves,  and  deadly  brawlers;  but 
according  to  the  same  tradition,  the  females  were 
all  chaste  and  faithful.  The  power  of  ancestry  on 
the  character  is  not  limited  to  the  inheritance  of 
cells.  If  I  buy  ancestors  by  the  gross  from  the 
benevolence  of  Lion  King  at  Arms,  my  grandson 
(if  he  is  Scottish)  will  feel  a  quickening  emulation 
of  their  deeds.  The  men  of  the  Elliotts  were  proud, 
lawless,  violent  as  of  right,  cherishing  and  pro- 
longing a  tradition.  In  like  manner  with  the 
women.  And  the  woman,  essentially  passionate 
and  reckless,  who  crouched  on  the  rug,  in  the  shine 
of  the  peat  fire,  telling  these  tales,  had  cherished 
through  life  a  wild  integrity  of  virtue. 

Her  father  Gilbert  had  been  deeply  pious,  a 
savage  disciplinarian  in  the  antique  style,  and 
withal  a  notorious  smuggler.  "  I  mind  when  I  was 
a  bairn  getting  mony  a  skelp  and  being  shoo'd  to 
bed  like  pou'try,"  she  would  say.  "  That  would  be 
when  the  lads  and  their  bit  kegs  were  on  the  road. 
We  Ve  had  the  riffraff  of  two-three  counties  in  our 
kitchen,  mony's  the  time,  betwix'  the  twelve  and 
the  three;  and  their  lanterns  would  be  standing  in 
the  forecourt,  ay,  a  score  o'  them  at  once.  But 
there  was  nae  ungodly  talk  permitted  at  Cauld- 
staneslap; my  faither  was  a  consistent  man  in 
walk  and  conversation;  just  let  slip  an  aith,  and 
there  was  the  door  to  ye !  He  had  that  zeal  for  the 
Lord,  it  was  a  fair  wonder  to  hear  him  pray,  but 
the  faimily  has  aye  had  a  gift  that  way."    This 


74    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

father  was  twice  married,  once  to  a  dark  woman  of 
the  old  Ellwald  stock,  by  whom  he  had  Gilbert, 
presently  of  Cauldstaneslap ;  and,  secondly,  to  the 
mother  of  Kirstie.  "  He  was  an  auld  man  when 
he  married  her,  a  fell  auld  man  wi'  a  muckle  voice 
—  you  could  hear  him  rowting  from  the  top  o'  the 
kye-stairs,"  she  said ;  "  but  for  her,  it  appears,  she 
was  a  perfit  wonder.  It  was  gentle  blood  she  had, 
Mr.  Archie,  for  it  was  your  ain.  The  country-side 
gaed  gyte  about  her  and  her  gowden  hair.  Mines 
is  no  to  be  mentioned  wi'  it,  and  there 's  few 
weemen  has  mair  hair  than  what  I  have,  or  yet  a 
bonnier  colour.  Often  would  I  tell  my  dear  Miss 
Jeannie  —  that  was  your  mother,  dear,  she  was 
cruel  ta'en  up  about  her  hair,  it  was  unco  tender, 
ye  see  —  *  Houts,  Miss  Jeannie/  I  would  say,  '  just 
fling  your  washes  and  your  French  dentifrishes  in 
the  back  o'  the  fire,  for  that 's  the  place  for  them ; 
and  awa'  down  to  a  burnside,  and  wash  yersel  in 
cauld  hill  water,  and  dry  your  bonny  hair  in  the 
caller  wind  o'  the  muirs,  the  way  that  my  mother 
aye  washed  hers,  and  that  I  have  aye  made  it  a 
practice  to  have  washen  mines  —  just  you  do  what 
I  tell  ye,  my  dear,  and  ye  '11  give  me  news  of  it ! 
Ye  '11  have  hair,  and  routh  of  hair,  a  pigtail  as 
thick  's  my  arm/  I  said,  '  and  the  bonniest  colour 
like  the  clear  gowden  guineas,  so  as  the  lads  in 
kirk  '11  no  can  keep  their  eyes  off  it ! '  Weel,  it 
lasted  out  her  time,  puir  thing!  I  cuttit  a  lock  of 
it  upon  her  corp  that  was  lying  there  sae  cauld. 
I  '11  show  it  ye  some  of  thir  days  if  ye  're  good. 
But,  as  I  was  sayin',  my  mither " 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     75 

On  the  death  of  the  father  there  remained 
golden-haired  Kirstie,  who  took  service  with  her 
distant  kinsfolk,  the  Rutherfords,  and  black-a-vised 
Gilbert,  twenty  years  older,  who  farmed  the  Cauld- 
staneslap,  married,  and  begot  four  sons  between 
1773  and  1784,  and  a  daughter,  like  a  postscript, 
in  '97,  the  year  of  Camperdown  and  Cape  St.  Vin- 
cent. It  seemed  it  was  a  tradition  of  the  family  to 
wind  up  with  a  belated  girl.  In  1804,  at  the  age 
of  sixty,  Gilbert  met  an  end  that  might  be  called 
heroic.  He  was  due  home  from  market  any  time 
from  eight  at  night  till  five  in  the  morning,  and  in 
any  condition  from  the  quarrelsome  to  the  speech- 
less, for  he  maintained  to  that  age  the  goodly  cus- 
toms of  the  Scots  farmer.  It  was  known  on  this 
occasion  that  he  had  a  good  bit  of  money  to  bring 
home;  the  word  had  gone  round  loosely.  The 
laird  had  shown  his  guineas,  and  if  anybody  had 
but  noticed  it,  there  was  an  ill-looking,  vagabond 
crew,  the  scum  of  Edinburgh,  that  drew  out  of  the 
market  long  ere  it  was  dusk  and  took  the  hill-road 
by  Hermiston,  where  it  was  not  to  be  believed  that 
they  had  lawful  business.  One  of  the  country-side, 
one  Dickieson,  they  took  with  them  to  be  their 
guide,  and  dear  he  paid  for  it !  Of  a  sudden,  in  the 
ford  of  the  Broken  Dykes,  this  vermin  clan  fell  on 
the  laird,  six  to  one,  and  him  three  parts  asleep, 
having  drunk  hard.  But  it  is  ill  to  catch  an  Elliott. 
For  awhile,  in  the  night  and  the  black  water  that 
was  deep  as  to  his  saddle-girths,  he  wrought  with 
his  staff  like  a  smith  at  his  stithy,  and  great  was  the 
sound  of  oaths  and  blows.    With  that  the  ambus- 


76     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

cade  was  burst,  and  he  rode  for  home  with  a  pistol- 
ball  in  him,  three  knife-wounds,  the  loss  of  his 
front  teeth,  a  broken  rib  and  bridle,  and  a  dying 
horse.  That  was  a  race  with  death  that  the  laird 
rode!  In  the  mirk  night,  with  his  broken  bridle 
and  his  head  swimming,  he  dug  his  spurs  to  the 
rowels  in  the  horse's  side,  and  the  horse,  that  was 
even  worse  off  than  himself,  the  poor  creature! 
screamed  out  loud  like  a  person  as  he  went,  so  that 
the  hills  echoed  with  it,  and  the  folks  at  Cauld- 
staneslap  got  to  their  feet  about  the  table  and 
looked  at  each  other  with  white  faces.  The  horse 
fell  dead  at  the  yard  gate,  the  laird  won  the  length 
of  the  house  and  fell  there  on  the  threshold.  To 
the  son  that  raised  him  he  gave  the  bag  of  money. 
"  Hae,"  said  he.  All  the  way  up  the  thieves  had 
seemed  to  him  to  be  at  his  heels,  but  now  the  hallu- 
cination left  him  —  he  saw  them  again  in  the  place 
of  the  ambuscade  —  and  the  thirst  of  vengeance 
seized  on  his  dying  mind.  Raising  himself  and 
pointing  with  an  imperious  finger  into  the  black 
night  from  which  he  had  come,  he  uttered  the 
single  command,  "  Brocken  Dykes,"  and  fainted. 
He  had  never  been  loved,  but  he  had  been  feared 
in  honour.  At  that  sight,  at  that  word,  gasped  out 
at  them  from  a  toothless  and  bleeding  mouth,  the 
old  Elliott  spirit  awoke  with  a  shout  in  the  four 
sons.  "  Wanting  the  hat,"  continues  my  author, 
Kirstie,  whom  I  but  haltingly  follow,  for  she  told 
this  tale  like  one  inspired,  "  wanting  guns,  for  there 
wasnae  twa  grains  o'  pouder  in  the  house,  wi'  nae 
mair  weepons  than  their  sticks  into  their  hands, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     77 

the  fower  o'  them  took  the  road.  Only  Hob,  and 
that  was  the  eldest,  hunkered  at  the  door-sill  where 
the  blood  had  rin,  fyled  his  hand  wi'  it,  and  haddit 
it  up  to  Heeven  in  the  way  o'  the  auld  Border  aith. 
*  Hell  shall  have  her  ain  again  this  nicht ! '  he 
raired,  and  rode  forth  upon  his  errand.' '  It  was 
three  miles  to  Broken  Dykes,  down-hill,  and  a 
sore  road.  Kirstie  has  seen  men  from  Edinburgh 
dismounting  there  in  plain  day  to  lead  their  horses. 
But  the  four  brothers  rode  it  as  if  Auld  Hornie 
were  behind  and  Heaven  in  front.  Come  to  the 
ford,  and  there  was  Dickieson.  By  all  tales,  he  was 
not  dead,  but  breathed  and  reared  upon  his  elbow, 
and  cried  out  to  them  for  help.  It  was  at  a  grace- 
less face  that  he  asked  mercy.  As  soon  as  Hob 
saw,  by  the  glint  of  the  lantern,  the  eyes  shining 
and  the  whiteness  of  the  teeth  in  the  man's  face, 
"  Damn  you !  "  says  he ;  "  ye  hae  your  teeth,  hae 
ye  ?  "  and  rode  his  horse  to  and  fro  upon  that 
human  remnant.  Beyond  that,  Dandie  must  dis- 
mount with  the  lantern  to  be  their  guide;  he  was 
the  youngest  son,  scarce  twenty  at  the  time.  "  A' 
nicht  long  they  gaed  in  the  wet  heath  and  jenni- 
pers,  and  whaur  they  gaed  they  neither  knew  nor 
cared,  but  just  followed  the  bluidstains  and  the 
footprints  o'  their  faither's  murderers.  And  a' 
nicht  Dandie  had  his  nose  to  the  grund  like  a 
tyke,  and  the  ithers  followed  and  spak'  naething, 
neither  black  nor  white.  There  was  nae  noise  to 
be  heard,  but  just  the  sough  of  the  swalled  burns, 
and  Hob,  the  dour  yin,  risping  his  teeth  as  he 
gaed."     With  the  first  glint  of  the  morning  they 


78     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

saw  they  were  on  the  drove  road,  and  at  that  the 
four  stopped  and  had  a  dram  to  their  breakfasts, 
for  they  knew  that  Dand  must  have  guided  them 
right,  and  the  rogues  could  be  but  little  ahead,  hot 
foot  for  Edinburgh  by  the  way  of  the  Pentland 
Hills.  By  eight  o'clock  they  had  word  of  them  — 
a  shepherd  had  seen  four  men  "  uncoly  mis- 
handled "  go  by  in  the  last  hour.  "  That 's  yin 
a  piece,"  says  Clem,  and  swung  his  cudgel.  "  Five 
o'  them ! "  says  Hob.  "  God's  death,  but  the 
faither  was  a  man !  And  him  drunk !  "  And  then 
there  befell  them  what  my  author  termed  "  a  sair 
misbegowk,"  for  they  were  overtaken  by  a  posse  of 
mounted  neighbours  come  to  aid  in  the  pursuit. 
Four  sour  faces  looked  on  the  reinforcement. 
"  The  deil  's  broughten  you !  "  said  Clem,  and  they 
rode  thenceforward  in  the  rear  of  the  party  with 
hanging  heads.  Before  ten  they  had  found  and 
secured  the  rogues,  and  by  three  of  the  afternoon, 
as  they  rode  up  the  Vennel  with  their  prisoners,  they 
were  aware  of  a  concourse  of  people  bearing  in 
their  midst  something  that  dripped.  "  For  the 
boady  of  the  saxt,"  pursued  Kirstie,  "  wi'  his  head 
smashed  like  a  hazelnit,  had  been  a'  that  nicht  in 
the  chairge  o'  Hermiston  Water,  and  it  dunting 
it  on  the  stanes,  and  grunding  it  on  the  shallows, 
and  flinging  the  deid  thing  heels-ower-hurdie  at 
the  Fa's  o'  Spango;  and  in  the  first  o'  the  day 
Tweed  had  got  a  hold  o'  him  and  carried  him  off 
like  a  wind,  for  it  was  uncoly  swalled  and  raced 
wi'  him,  bobbing  under  braesides,  and  was  long 
playing  with  the  creature  in  the   drumlie  lynns 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     79 

under  the  castle,  and  at  the  hinder  end  of  all  cuist 
him  up  on  the  starling  of  Crossmichael  brig.  Sae 
there  they  were  a'  thegither  at  last  (for  Dickieson 
had  been  brought  in  on  a  cart  long  syne),  and  folk 
could  see  what  mainner  o'  man  my  brither  had 
been  that  had  held  his  head  again  sax  and  saved 
the  siller,  and  him  drunk !  "  Thus  died  of  hon- 
ourable injuries  and  in  the  savour  of  fame  Gilbert 
Elliott  of  the  Cauldstaneslap ;  but  his  sons  had 
scarce  less  glory  out  of  the  business.  Their  savage 
haste,  the  skill  with  which  Dand  had  found  and 
followed  the  trail,  the  barbarity  to  the  wounded 
Dickieson  (which  was  like  an  open  secret  in  the 
county)  and  the  doom  which  it  was  currently 
supposed  they  had  intended  for  the  others,  struck 
and  stirred  popular  imagination.  Some  century 
earlier  the  last  of  the  minstrels  might  have  fash- 
ioned the  last  of  the  ballads  out  of  that  Homeric 
fight  and  chase;  but  the  spirit  was  dead,  or  had 
been  reincarnated  already  in  Mr.  Sheriff  Scott,  and 
the  degenerate  moorsmen  must  be  content  to  tell 
the  tale  in  prose  and  to  make  of  the  "  Four  Black 
Brothers  "  a  unit  after  the  fashion  of  the  "  Twelve 
Apostles  "  or  the  "  Three  Musketeers." 

Robert,  Gilbert,  Clement,  and  Andrew  —  in  the 
proper  Border  diminutive,  Hob,  Gib,  Clem,  and 
Dand  Elliott  —  these  ballad  heroes  had  much  in 
common;  in  particular,  their  high  sense  of  the 
family  and  the  family  honour;  but  they  went 
diverse  ways,  and  prospered  and  failed  in  different 
businesses.  According  to  Kirstie,  "  they  had  a* 
bees  in  their  bonnets  but  Hob."    Hob  the  laird  was, 


80     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

indeed,  essentially  a  decent  man.  An  elder  of  the 
Kirk,  nobody  had  heard  an  oath  upon  his  lips,  save, 
perhaps,  thrice  or  so  at  the  sheep-washing,  since 
the  chase  of  his  father's  murderers.  The  figure 
he  had  shown  on  that  eventful  night  disappeared 
as  if  swallowed  by  a  trap.  He  who  had  ecstati- 
cally dipped  his  hand  in  the  red  blood,  he  who  had 
ridden  down  Dickieson,  became,  from  that  moment 
on,  a  stiff  and  rather  graceless  model  of  the  rustic 
proprieties;  cannily  profiting  by  the  high  war 
prices,  and  yearly  stowing  away  a  little  nest-egg 
in  the  bank  against  calamity;  approved  of  and 
sometimes  consulted  by  the  greater  lairds  for  the 
massive  and  placid  sense  of  what  he  said,  when 
he  could  be  induced  to  say  anything;  and  particu- 
larly valued  by  the  minister,  Mr.  Torrance,  as  a 
righthand  man  in  the  parish,  and  a  model*  to 
parents.  The  transfiguration  had  been  for  the 
moment  only;  some  Barbarossa,  some  old  Adam 
of  our  ancestors,  sleeps  in  all  of  us  till  the  fit  cir- 
cumstance shall  call  it  into  action ;  and  for  as  sober 
as  he  now  seemed,  Hob  had  given  once  for  all  the 
measure  of  the  devil  that  haunted  him.  He  was 
married,  and,  by  reason  of  the  effulgence  of  that 
legendary  night,  was  adored  by  his  wife.  He 
had  a  mob  of  little  lusty,  barefoot  children  who 
marched  in  a  caravan  the  long  miles  to  school,  the 
stages  of  whose  pilgrimage  were  marked  by  acts 
of  spoliation  and  mischief,  and  who  were  qualified 
in  the  country-side  as  "  fair  pests."  But  in  the 
house,  if  "  faither  was  in,"  they  were  quiet  as  mice. 
In  short,  Hob  moved  through  life  in  a  great  peace  — 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     81 

the  reward  of  any  one  who  shall  have  killed  his 
man,  with  any  formidable  and  figurative  circum- 
stance, in  the  midst  of  a  country  gagged  and 
swaddled  with  civilisation. 

It  was  a  current  remark  that  the  Elliotts  were 
"  guid  and  bad,  like  sanguishes  " ;  and  certainly 
there  was  a  curious  distinction,  the  men  of  business 
coming  alternately  with  the  dreamers.  The  second 
brother,  Gib,  was  a  weaver  by  trade,  had  gone  out 
early  into  the  world  to  Edinburgh,  and  come  home 
again  with  his  wings  singed.  There  was  an  exalta- 
tion in  his  nature  which  had  led  him  to  embrace 
with  enthusiasm  the  principles  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution, and  had  ended  by  bringing  him  under  the 
hawse  of  my  Lord  Hermiston  in  that  furious  on- 
slaught of  his  upon  the  Liberals,  which  sent  Muir 
and  Palmer  into  exile  and  dashed  the  party  into 
chaff.  It  was  whispered  that  my  lord,  in  his  great 
scorn  for  the  movement,  and  prevailed  upon  a 
little  by  a  sense  of  neighbourliness,  had  given  Gib 
a  hint.  Meeting  him  one  day  in  the  Potterrow,  my 
lord  had  stopped  in  front  of  him.  "  Gib,  ye  eediot," 
he  had  said,  "  what 's  this  I  hear  of  you  ?  Poali- 
tics,  poalitics,  poalitics  weaver's  poalitics,  is  the 
way  of  it,  I  hear.  If  ye  are  nae  a'  thegether 
dozened  with  eediocy,  ye  '11  gang  your  ways  back  to 
Cauldstaneslap,  and  ca'  your  loom,  and  ca'  your 
loom,  man !  "  And  Gilbert  had  taken  him  at  the 
word  and  returned,  with  an  expedition  almost  to 
be  called  flight,  to  the  house  of  his  father.  The 
clearest  of  his  inheritance  was  that  family  gift  of 
prayer  of  which   Kirstie  had  boasted;    and  the 

6 


82     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

baffled  politician  now  turned  his  attention  to  re- 
ligious matters  —  or,  as  others  said,  to  heresy  and 
schism.  Every  Sunday  morning  he  was  in  Cross- 
michael,  where  he  had  gathered  together,  one  by 
one,  a  sect  of  about  a  dozen  persons,  who  called 
themselves  "  God's  Remnant  of  the  True  Faith- 
ful/' or,  for  short,  "God's  Remnant."  To  the 
profane,  they  were  known  as  "  Gib's  Deils." 
Baillie  Sweedie,  a  noted  humourist  in  the  town, 
vowed  that  the  proceedings  always  opened  to  the 
tune  of  "  The  Deil  Fly  Away  with  the  Excise- 
man," and  that  the  sacrament  was  dispensed  in 
the  form  of  hot  whisky  toddy;  both  wicked  hits 
at  the  evangelist,  who  had  been  suspected  of  smug- 
gling in  his  youth,  and  had  been  overtaken  (as 
the  phrase  went)  on  the  streets  of  Crossmichael 
one  Fair  day.  It  was  known  that  every  Sunday 
they  prayed  for  a  blessing  on  the  arms  of  Bona- 
parte. For  this,  "  God's  Remnant,"  as  they  were 
"  skailing "  from  the  cottage  that  did  duty  for 
a  temple,  had  been  repeatedly  stoned  by  the 
bairns,  and  Gib  himself  hooted  by  a  squadron  of 
Border  volunteers  in  which  his  own  brother, 
Dand,  rode  in  a  uniform  and  with  a  drawn  sword. 
The  "  Remnant "  were  believed,  besides,  to  be 
"  antinomian  in  principle,"  which  might  other- 
wise have  been  a  serious  charge,  but  the  way 
public  opinion  then  blew  it  was  quite  swallowed 
up  and  forgotten  in  the  scandal  about  Bonaparte. 
For  the  rest,  Gilbert  had  set  up  his  loom  in  an 
outhouse  at  Cauldstaneslap,  where  he  laboured 
assiduously  six  days  of  the  week.     His  brothers, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     83 

appalled  by  his  political  opinions  and  willing  to 
avoid  dissension  in  the  household,  spoke  but  little 
to  him;  he  less  to  them,  remaining  absorbed  in 
the  study  of  the  Bible  and  almost  constant  prayer. 
The  gaunt  weaver  was  dry-nurse  at  Cauldstaneslap, 
and  the  bairns  loved  him  dearly.  Except  when 
he  was  carrying  an  infant  in  his  arms,  he  was 
rarely  seen  to  smile  —  as,  indeed,  there  were  few 
smilers  in  that  family.  When  his  sister-in-law 
rallied  him,  and  proposed  that  he  should  get  a 
wife  and  bairns  of  his  own,  since  he  was  so  fond 
of  them,  "  I  have  no  clearness  of  mind  upon  that 
point,"  he  would  reply.  If  nobody  called  him  in  to 
dinner,  he  stayed  out.  Mrs.  Hob,  a  hard,  unsym- 
pathetic woman,  once  tried  the  experiment.  He 
went  without  food  all  day,  but  at  dusk,  as  the  light 
began  to  fail  him,  he  came  into  the  house  of  his 
own  accord,  looking  puzzled.  "  I  Ve  had  a  great 
gale  of  prayer  upon  my  speerit,"  said  he.  "  I 
canna  mind  sae  muckle  's  what  I  had  for  denner." 
The  creed  of  God's  Remnant  was  justified  in  the 
life  of  its  founder.  "And  yet  I  dinna  ken,"  said 
Kirstie.  "  He  *$  maybe  no  more  stockfish  than  his 
neeghbours!  He  rode  wi'  the  rest  o'  them,  and 
had  a  good  stamach  to  the  work,  by  a'  that  I 
hear !  God's  Remnant !  The  deil's  clavers !  There 
wasna  muckle  Christianity  in  the  way  Hob  guided 
Johnny  Dickieson,  at  the  least  of  it;  but  Guid 
kens!  Is  he  a  Christian  even?  He  might  be  a 
Mahommedan  or  a  Deevil  or  a  Fireworshiper,  for 
what  I  ken." 

The  third  brother  had  his  name  on  a  door-plate, 


84     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

no  less,  in  the  city  of  Glasgow.  "  Mr.  Clement 
Elliott,"  as  long  as  your  arm.  In  his  case,  that 
spirit  of  innovation  which  had  shown  itself  timidly 
in  the  case  of  Hob  by  the  admission  of  new  ma- 
nures, and  which  had  run  to  waste  with  Gilbert 
in  subversive  politics  and  heretical  religions,  bore 
useful  fruit  in  many  ingenious  mechanical  im- 
provements. In  boyhood,  from  his  addiction  to 
strange  devices  of  sticks  and  string,  he  had  been 
counted  the  most  eccentric  of  the  family.  But 
that  was  all  by  now,  and  he  was  a  partner  of  his 
firm,  and  looked  to  die  a  baillie.  He  too  had  mar- 
ried, and  was  rearing  a  plentiful  family  in  the 
smoke  and  din  of  Glasgow;  he  was  wealthy,  and 
could  have  bought  out  his  brother,  the  cock-laird, 
six  times  over,  it  was  whispered;  and  when  he 
slipped  away  to  Cauldstaneslap  for  a  well-earned 
holiday,  which  he  did  as  often  as  he  was  able,  he 
astonished  the  neighbours  with  his  broadcloth,  his 
beaver  hat,  and  the  ample  plies  of  his  neck-cloth. 
Though  an  eminently  solid  man  at  bottom,  after 
the  pattern  of  Hob,  he  had  contracted  a  certain 
Glasgow  briskness  and  aplomb  which  set  him  off. 
All  the  other  Elliotts  were  as  lean  as  a  rake,  but 
Clement  was  laying  on  fat,  and  he  panted  sorely 
when  he  must  get  into  his  boots.  Dand  said, 
chuckling :  "  Ay,  Clem  has  the  elements  of  a  cor- 
poration." "  A  provost  and  corporation,"  returned 
Clem.     And  his  readiness  was  much  admired. 

The  fourth  brother,  Dand,  was  a  shepherd  to 
his  trade,  and  by  starts,  when  he  could  bring  his 
mind  to  it,  excelled  in  the  business.    Nobody  could 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     85 

train  a  dog  like  Dandie ;  nobody,  through  the  peril 
of  great  storms  in  the  winter  time,  could  do  more 
gallantly.  But  if  his  dexterity  were  exquisite,  his 
diligence  was  but  fitful ;  and  he  served  his  brother 
for  bed  and  board,  and  a  trifle  of  pocket-money 
when  he  asked  for  it.  He  loved  money  well 
enough,  knew  very  well  how  to  spend  it,  and  could 
make  a  shrewd  bargain  when  he  liked.  But  he 
preferred  a  vague  knowledge  that  he  was  well  to 
windward  to  any  counted  coins  in  the  pocket;  he 
felt  himself  richer  so.  Hob  would  expostulate: 
"  I  'm  an  amateur  herd,"  Dand  would  reply :  "  I  '11 
keep  your  sheep  to  you  when  I  'm  so  minded,  but 
I  '11  keep  my  liberty  too.  Thir  's  no  man  can  coan- 
descend  on  what  I  'm  worth."  Clem  would  ex- 
pound to  him  the  miraculous  results  of  compound 
interest,  and  recommend  investments.  "Ay, man?" 
Dand  would  say,  "  and  do  you  think,  if  I  took 
Hob's  siller,  that  I  wouldna  drink  it  or  wear  it  on 
the  lassies?  And,  anyway,  my  kingdom  is  no  of 
this  world.  Either  I  'm  a  poet  or  else  I  'm  noth- 
ing." Clem  would  remind  him  of  old  age.  "  I  '11 
die  young,  like  Robbie  Burns,"  he  would  say 
stoutly.  No  question  but  he  had  a  certain  accom- 
plishment in  minor  verse.  His  "  Hermiston  Burn," 
with  its  pretty  refrain  — 

I  love  to  gang  thinking  whaur  ye  gang  linking, 
Hermiston  burn,  in  the  howe ; 

his  "Auld,  auld  Elliotts,  clay-cauld  Elliotts,  dour, 
bauld  Elliotts  of  auld,"  and  his  really  fascinating 
piece   about   the    Praying   Weaver's    Stone,    had 


86     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

gained  him  in  the  neighbourhood  the  reputation, 
still  possible  in  Scotland,  of  a  local  bard;  and, 
though  not  printed  himself,  he  was  recognised  by 
others  who  were  and  who  had  become  famous. 
Walter  Scott  owed  to  Dandie  the  text  of  the  "  Raid 
of  Wearie  "  in  the  Minstrelsy  and  made  him  wel- 
come at  his  house,  and  appreciated  his  talents,  such 
as  they  were,  with  all  his  usual  generosity.  The 
Ettrick  Shepherd  was  his  sworn  crony ;  they  would 
meet,  drink  to  excess,  roar  out  their  lyrics  in  each 
other's  faces,  and  quarrel  and  make  it  up  again 
till  bedtime.  And  besides  these  recognitions,  al- 
most to  be  called  official,  Dandie  was  made  wel- 
come for  the  sake  of  his  gift  through  the 
farmhouses  of  several  contiguous  dales,  and  was 
thus  exposed  to  manifold  temptations  which  he 
rather  sought  than  fled.  He  had  figured  on  the 
stool  of  repentance,  for  once  fulfilling  to  the  letter 
the  tradition  of  his  hero  and  model.  His  hu- 
mourous verses  to  Mr.  Torrance  on  that  occasion 
—  "  Kenspeckle  here  my  lane  I  stand  "  —  unfor- 
tunately too  indelicate  for  further  citation,  ran 
through  the  country  like  a  fiery  cross;  they  were 
recited,  quoted,  paraphrased,  and  laughed  over  as 
far  away  as  Dumfries  on  the  one  hand  and  Dun- 
bar on  the  other. 

These  four  brothers  were  united  by  a  close  bond, 
the  bond  of  that  mutual  admiration  —  or  rather 
mutual  hero-worship  —  which  is  so  strong  among 
the  members  of  secluded  families  who  have  much 
ability  and  little  culture.  Even  the  extremes  ad- 
mired each  other.    Hob,  who  had  as  much  poetry 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     87 

as  the  tongs,  professed  to  find  pleasure  in  Dand's 
verses;  Clem,  who  had  no  more  religion  than 
Claverhouse,  nourished  a  heartfelt,  at  least  an 
open-mouthed,  admiration  of  Gib's  prayers;  and 
Dandie  followed  with  relish  the  rise  of  Clem's 
fortunes.  Indulgence  followed  hard  on  the  heels 
of  admiration.  The  laird,  Clem,  and  Dand,  who 
were  Tories  and  patriots  of  the  hottest  quality,  ex- 
cused to  themselves,  with  a  certain  bash  fulness,  the 
radical  and  revolutionary  heresies  of  Gid.  By 
another  division  of  the  family,  the  laird,  Clem, 
and  Gib,  who  were  men  exactly  virtuous,  swal- 
lowed the  dose  of  Dand's  irregularities  as  a  kind 
of  clog  or  drawback  in  the  mysterious  providence 
of  God  affixed  to  bards,  and  distinctly  probative  of 
poetical  genius.  To  appreciate  the  simplicity  of 
their  mutual  admiration,  it  was  necessary  to  hear 
Clem,  arrived  upon  one  of  his  visits,  and  deal- 
ing in  a  spirit  of  continuous  irony  with  the  affairs 
and  personalities  of  that  great  city  of  Glasgow 
where  he  lived  and  transacted  business.  The  vari- 
ous personages,  ministers  of  the  church,  muni- 
cipal officers,  mercantile  big-wigs,  whom  he  had 
occasion  to  introduce,  were  all  alike  denigrated, 
all  served  but  as  reflectors  to  cast  back  a  flattering 
side-light  on  the  house  of  Cauldstaneslap.  The 
Provost,  for  whom  Clem  by  exception  entertained 
a  measure  of  respect,  he  would  liken  to  Hob.  "  He 
minds  me  o'  the  laird  there,"  he  would  say.  "  He 
has  some  of  Hob's  grand,  whun-stane  sense,  and 
the  same  way  with  him  of  steiking  his  mouth  when 
he  's  no  very  pleased."    And  Hob,  all  unconscious, 


88     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

would  draw  down  his  upper  lip  and  produce,  as 
if  for  comparison,  the  formidable  grimace  referred 
to.  The  unsatisfactory  incumbent  of  St.  Enoch's 
Kirk  was  thus  briefly  dismissed :  "  If  he  had  but 
twa  fingers  o'  Gib's  he  would  waken  them  up." 
And  Gib,  honest  man!  would  look  down  and 
secretly  smile.  Clem  was  a  spy  whom  they  had 
sent  out  into  the  world  of  men.  He  had  come 
back  with  the  good  news  that  there  was  nobody 
to  compare  with  the  Four  Black  Brothers,  no  posi- 
tion that  they  would  not  adorn,  no  official  that 
it  would  not  be  well  they  should  replace,  no  in- 
terest of  mankind,  secular  or  spiritual,  which  would 
not  immediately  bloom  under  their  supervision. 
The  excuse  of  their  folly  is  in  two  words :  scarce 
the  breadth  of  a  hair  divided  them  from  the  peas- 
antry. The  measure  of  their  sense  is  this:  that 
these  symposia  of  rustic  vanity  were  kept  entirely 
within  the  family,  like  some  secret  ancestral  prac- 
tice. To  the  world  their  serious  faces  were  never 
deformed  by  the  suspicion  of  any  simper  of  self- 
contentment.  Yet  it  was  known.  "  They  hae  a 
guid  pride  o'  themsel's ! "  was  the  word  in  the 
country-side. 

Lastly,  in  a  Border  story,  there  should  be  added 
their  "  two-names."  Hob  was  The  Laird.  "  Roy 
ne  puis,  prince  ne  daigne " ;  he  was  the  laird 
of  Cauldstaneslap  —  say  fifty  acres  —  ipsissimus. 
Clement  was  Mr.  Elliott,  as  upon  his  door-plate, 
the  earlier  Dafty  having  been  discarded  as  no 
longer  applicable,  and  indeed  only  a  reminder  of 
misjudgment  and  the  imbecility  of  the  public ;  and 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     89 

the  youngest,  in  honour  of  his  perpetual  wander- 
ings, was  known  by  the  sobriquet  of  Randy  Dand. 

It  will  be  understood  that  not  all  this  informa- 
tion was  communicated  by  the  aunt,  who  had  too 
much  of  the  family  failing  herself  to  appreciate 
it  thoroughly  in  others.  But  as  time  went  on, 
Archie  began  to  observe  an  omission  in  the  family 
chronicle. 

"  Is  there  not  a  girl  too?  "  he  asked. 

"  Ay.  Kirstie.  She  was  named  from  me,  or  my 
grandmother  at  least  —  it 's  the  same  thing,"  re- 
turned the  aunt,  and  went  on  again  about  Dand, 
whom  she  secretly  preferred  by  reason  of  his 
gallantries. 

"  But  what  is  your  niece  like  ?  "  said  Archie  at 
the  next  opportunity. 

"  Her  ?  As  black  's  your  hat !  But  I  dinna  sup- 
pose she  would  maybe  be  what  you  would  ca' 
ill-looked  a'  thegither.  Na,  she  's  a  kind  of  a  hand- 
some jaud  —  a  kind  o'  gipsy,"  said  the  aunt,  who 
had  two  sets  of  scales  for  men  and  women  —  or 
perhaps  it  would  be  more  fair  to  say  that  she  had 
three,  and  the  third  and  the  most  loaded  was  for 
girls. 

"  How  comes  it  that  I  never  see  her  in  church?  " 
said  Archie. 

"  'Deed,  and  I  believe  she 's  in  Glesgie  with 
Clem  and  his  wife.  A  heap  good  she's  like  to 
get  of  it!  I  dinna  say  for  men  folk,  but  where 
weemen  folk  are  born,  there  let  them  bide.  Glory 
to  God,  I  was  never  far'er  from  here  than 
Crossmichael." 


9o     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

In  the  meantime  it  began  to  strike  Archie  as 
strange,  that  while  she  thus  sang  the  praises  of 
her  kinsfolk,  and  manifestly  relished  their  virtues 
and  (I  may  say)  their  vices  like  a  thing  creditable 
to  herself,  there  should  appear  not  the  least  sign 
of  cordiality  between  the  house  of  Hermiston  and 
that  of  Cauldstaneslap.  Going  to  church  of  a 
Sunday,  as  the  lady  housekeeper  stepped  with  her 
skirts  kilted,  three  tucks  of  her  white  petticoat 
showing  below,  and  her  best  India  shawl  upon  her 
back  (if  the  day  were  fine)  in  a  pattern  of  radiant 
dyes,  she  would  sometimes  overtake  her  relatives 
preceding  her  more  leisurely  in  the  same  direction. 
Gib  of  course  was  absent:  by  skriegh  of  day  he 
had  been  gone  to  Crossmichael  and  his  fellow 
heretics;  but  the  rest  of  the  family  would  be  seen 
marching  in  open  order:  Hob  and  Dand,  stiff- 
necked,  straight-backed  six-footers,  with  severe 
dark  faces,  and  their  plaids  about  their  shoulders; 
the  convoy  of  children  scattering  ( in  a  state  of  high 
polish)  on  the  wayside,  and  every  now  and  again 
collected  by  the  shrill  summons  of  the  mother ;  and 
the  mother  herself,  by  a  suggestive  circumstance 
which  might  have  afforded  matter  of  thought  to 
a  more  experienced  observer  than  Archie,  wrapped 
in  a  shawl  nearly  identical  with  Kirstie's  but  a 
thought  more  gaudy  and  conspicuously  newer.  At 
the  sight,  Kirstie  grew  more  tall  —  Kirstie  showed 
her  classical  profile,  nose  in  air  and  nostril  spread, 
the  pure  blood  came  in  her  cheek  evenly  in  a  deli- 
cate living  pink. 

"  A  braw  day  to  ye,  Mistress  Elliott,"  said  she, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON    91 

and  hostility,  and  gentility  were  nicely  mingled  in 
her  tones.  "  A  fine  day,  mem,"  the  laird's  wife 
would  reply  with  a  miraculous  curtsey,  spreading 
the  while  her  plumage  —  setting  off,  in  other 
words,  and  with  arts  unknown  to  the  mere  man, 
the  pattern  of  her  India  shawl.  Behind  her,  the 
whole  Cauldstaneslap  contingent  marched  in  closer 
order,  and  with  an  indescribable  air  of  being  in 
the  presence  of  the  foe ;  and  while  Dandie  saluted 
his  aunt  with  a  certain  familiarity  as  of  one  who 
was  well  in  court,  Hob  marched  on  in  awful  im- 
mobility. There  appeared  upon  the  face  of  this 
attitude  in  the  family  the  consequences  of  some 
dreadful  feud.  Presumably  the  two  women  had 
been  principals  in  the  original  encounter,  and  the 
laird  had  probably  been  drawn  into  the  quarrel  by 
the  ears,  too  late  to  be  included  in  the  present  skin- 
deep  reconciliation. 

"  Kirstie,"  said  Archie  one  day,  "  what  is  this 
you  have  against  your  family?" 

"  I  dinna  complean,"  said  Kirstie,  with  a  flush. 
"  I  say  naething." 

"I  see  you  do  not  —  not  even  good-day  to  your 
own  nephew,"  said  he. 

"  I  hae  naething  to  be  ashaimed  of,"  said 
she.  "  I  can  say  the  Lord's  prayer  with  a  good 
grace.  If  Hob  was  ill,  or  in  preeson  or  poverty, 
I  would  see  to  him  blithely.  But  for  curtchy- 
ing  and  complimenting  and  colloguing,  thank  ye 
kindly!" 

Archie  had  a  bit  of  a  smile:  he  leaned  back  in 
his  chair.    "  I  think  you  and  Mrs.  Robert  are  not 


92     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

very  good  friends,"  says  he  slyly,  "  when  you  have 
your  India  shawls  on  ?  " 

She  looked  upon  him  in  silence,  with  a  sparkling 
eye  but  an  indecipherable  expression ;  and  that  was 
all  that  Archie  was  ever  destined  to  learn  of  the 
battle  of  the  India  shawls. 

"  Do  none  of  them  ever  come  here  to  see  you  ?  " 
he  inquired. 

"  Mr.  Archie,"  said  she,  "  I  hope  that  I  ken  my 
place  better.  It  would  be  a  queer  thing,  I  think,  if  I 
was  to  clamjamfry  up  your  faither's  house  .  .  .  that 
I  should  say  it !  —  wi'  a  dirty,  black-a-vised  clan, 
no  ane  o'  them  it  was  worth  while  to  mar  soap  upon 
but  just  mysel* !  Na,  they  're  all  damnifeed  wi'  the 
black  Ellwalds.  I  have  nae  patience  wi'  black  folk." 
Then,  with  a  sudden  consciousness  of  the  case  of 
Archie,  "  No  that  it  maitters  for  men  sae  muckle," 
she  made  haste  to  add,  "  but  there  's  naebody  can 
deny  that  it 's  unwomanly.  Long  hair  is  the  orna- 
ment o'  woman  ony  way ;  we  've  good  warrandise 
for  that  —  it 's  in  the  Bible  —  and  wha  can  doubt 
that  the  Apostle  had  some  gowden-haired  lassie 
in  his  mind  —  Apostle  and  all,  for  what  was  he 
but  just  a  man  like  yersel'  ?  " 


CHAPTER   VI 

A  LEAF  FROM   CHRISTINAS   PSALM-BOOK 

ARCHIE  was  sedulous  at  church.  Sunday 
/\  after  Sunday  he  sat  down  and  stood  up 
JL  JL  with  that  small  company,  heard  the  voice 
of  Mr.  Torrance  leaping  like  an  ill-played  clarionet 
from  key  to  key,  and  had  an  opportunity  to  study 
his  moth-eaten  gown  and  the  black  thread  mittens 
that  he  joined  together  in  prayer,  and  lifted  up  with 
a  reverent  solemnity  in  the  act  of  benediction. 
Hermiston  pew  was  a  little  square  box,  dwarfish 
in  proportion  with  the  kirk  itself,  and  enclosing  a 
table  not  much  bigger  than  a  footstool.  There  sat 
Archie  an  apparent  prince,  the  only  undeniable 
gentleman  and  the  only  great  heritor  in  the  parish, 
taking  his  ease  in  the  only  pew,  for  no  other  in  the 
kirk  had  doors.  Thence  he  might  command  an 
undisturbed  view  of  that  congregation  of  solid 
plaided  men,  strapping  wives  and  daughters,  op- 
pressed children,  and  uneasy  sheep-dogs.  It  was 
strange  how  Archie  missed  the  look  of  race;  ex- 
cept the  dogs,  with  their  refined  foxy  faces  and 
inimitably  curling  tails,  there  was  no  one  present 
with  the  least  claim  to  gentility.  The  Cauldstane- 
slap  party  was  scarcely  an  exception ;  Dandie  per- 
haps, as  he  amused  himself  making  verses  through 


94     W&IR    OF    HERMISTON 

the  interminable  burthen  of  the  service,  stood  out 
a  little  by  the  glow  in  his  eye  and  a  certain  superior 
animation  of  face  and  alertness  of  body ;  but  even 
Dandie  slouched  like  a  rustic.  The  rest  of  the 
congregation,  like  so  many  sheep,  oppressed  him 
with  a  sense  of  hob-nailed  routine,  day  following 
day  —  of  physical  labour  in  the  open  air,  oatmeal 
porridge,  peas  bannock,  the  somnolent  fireside  in 
the  evening,  and  the  night-long  nasal  slumbers  in 
a  box-bed.  Yet  he  knew  many  of  them  to  be  shrewd 
and  humourous,  men  of  character,  notable  women, 
making  a  bustle  in  the  world  and  radiating  an  in- 
fluence from  their  low-browed  doors.  He  knew 
besides  they  were  like  other  men;  below  the  crust 
of  custom,  rapture  found  a  way;  he  had  heard 
them  beat  the  timbrel  before  Bacchus  —  had  heard 
them  shout  and  carouse  over  their  whisky  toddy; 
and  not  the  most  Dutch-bottomed  and  severe  faces 
among  them  all,  not  even  the  solemn  elders  them- 
selves, but  were  capable  of  singular  gambols  at  the 
voice  of  love.  Men  drawing  near  to  an  end  of 
life's  adventurous  journey  —  maids  thrilling  with 
fear  and  curiosity  on  the  threshold  of  entrance  — 
women  who  had  borne  and  perhaps  buried  chil- 
dren, who  could  remember  the  clinging  of  the 
small  dead  hands  and  the  patter  of  the  little  feet 
now  silent  —  he  marvelled  that  among  all  those 
faces  there  should  be  no  face  of  expectation,  none 
that  was  mobile,  none  into  which  the  rhythm  and 
poetry  of  life  had  entered.  "  O  for  a  live  face," 
he  thought;  and  at  times  he  had  a  memory  of 
Lady  Flora;  and  at  times  he  would  study  the 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     95 

living  gallery  before  him  with  despair,  and  would 
see  himself  go  on  to  waste  his  days  in  that  joyless, 
pastoral  place,  and  death  come  to  him,  and  his 
grave  be  dug  under  the  rowans,  and  the  Spirit  of 
the  Earth  laugh  out  in  a  thunder-peal  at  the  huge 
fiasco. 

On  this  particular  Sunday,  there  was  no  doubt 
but  that  the  spring  had  come  at  last.  It  was  warm, 
with  a  latent  shiver  in  the  air  that  made  the 
warmth  only  the  more  welcome.  The  shallows  of 
the  stream  glittered  and  tinkled  among  bunches  of 
primrose.  Vagrant  scents  of  the  earth  arrested 
Archie  by  the  way  with  moments  of  ethereal  in- 
toxication. The  grey,  Quakerish  dale  was  still  only 
awakened  in  places  and  patches  from  the  sobriety 
of  its  wintry  colouring;  and  he  wondered  at  its 
beauty;  an  essential  beauty  of  the  old  earth  it 
seemed  to  him,  not  resident  in  particulars  but 
breathing  to  him  from  the  whole.  He  surprised 
himself  by  a  sudden  impulse  to  write  poetry  —  he 
did  so  sometimes,  loose,  galloping  octosyllabics  in 
the  vein  of  Scott  —  and  when  he  had  taken  his 
place  on  a  boulder,  near  some  fairy  falls  and  shaded 
by  a  whip  of  a  tree  that  was  already  radiant  with 
new  leaves,  it  still  more  surprised  him  that  he 
should  find  nothing  to  write.  His  heart  perhaps 
beat  in  time  to  some  vast  indwelling  rhythm  of 
the  universe.  By  the  time  he  came  to  a  corner 
of  the  valley  and  could  see  the  kirk,  he  had  so 
lingered  by  the  way  that  the  first  psalm  was  finish- 
ing. The  nasal  psalmody,  full  of  turns  and  trills 
and  graceless  graces,  seemed  the  essential  voice  of 


96    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

the  kirk  itself  upraised  in  thanksgiving.  "  Every- 
thing's  alive,"  he  said;  and  again  cries  it  aloud, 
"  Thank  God,  everything  's  alive !  "  He  lingered 
yet  awhile  in  the  kirk-yard.  A  tuft  of  primroses 
was  blooming  hard  by  the  leg  of  an  old,  black  table 
tombstone,  and  he  stopped  to  contemplate  the  ran- 
dom apologue.  They  stood  forth  on  the  cold  earth 
with  a  trenchancy  of  contrast;  and  he  was  struck 
with  a  sense  of  incompleteness  in  the  day,  the  sea- 
son, and  the  beauty  that  surrounded  him  —  the 
chill  there  was  in  the  warmth,  the  gross  black  clods 
about  the  opening  primroses,  the  damp  earthy  smell 
that  was  everywhere  intermingled  with  the  scents. 
The  voice  of  the  aged  Torrance  within  rose  in  an 
ecstasy.  And  he  wondered  if  Torrance  also  felt 
in  his  old  bones  the  joyous  influence  of  the  spring 
morning;  Torrance,  or  the  shadow  of  what  once 
was  Torrance,  that  must  come  so  soon  to  lie  out- 
side here  in  the  sun  and  rain  with  all  his  rheuma- 
tisms, while  a  new  minister  stood  in  his  room  and 
thundered  from  his  own  familiar  pulpit  ?  The  pity 
of  it,  and  something  of  the  chill  of  the  grave,  shook 
him  for  a  moment  as  he  made  haste  to  enter. 

He  went  up  the  aisle  reverently  and  took  his 
place  in  the  pew  with  lowered  eyes,  for  he  feared 
he  had  already  offended  the  kind  old  gentleman  in 
the  pulpit,  and  was  sedulous  to  offend  no  farther. 
He  could  not  follow  the  prayer,  not  even  the  heads 
of  it.  Brightnesses  of  azure,  clouds  of  fragrance, 
a  tinkle  of  falling  water  and  singing  birds,  rose 
like  exhalations  from  some  deeper,  aboriginal 
memory,  that  was  not  his,  but  belonged  to  the 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     97 

flesh  on  his  bones.  His  body  remembered;  and  it 
seemed  to  him  that  his  body  was  in  no  way  gross, 
but  ethereal  and  perishable  like  a  strain  of  music; 
and  he  felt  for  it  an  exquisite  tenderness  as  for  a 
child,  an  innocent,  full  of  beautiful  instincts  and 
destined  to  an  early  death.  And  he  felt  for  old 
Torrance  —  of  the  many  supplications,  of  the  few 
days  —  a  pity  that  was  near  to  tears.  The  prayer 
ended.  Right  over  him  was  a  tablet  in  the  wall, 
the  only  ornament  in  the  roughly  masoned  chapel 
—  for  it  was  no  more ;  the  tablet  commemorated, 
I  was  about  to  say  the  virtues,  but  rather  the  ex- 
istence of  a  former  Rutherford  of  Hermiston ;  and 
Archie,  under  that  trophy  of  his  long  descent  and 
local  greatness,  leaned  back  in  the  pew  and  con- 
templated vacancy  with  the  shadow  of  a  smile  be- 
tween playful  and  sad,  that  became  him  strangely. 
Dandie's  sister,  sitting  by  the  side  of  Clem  in  her 
new  Glasgow  finery,  chose  that  moment  to  observe 
the  young  laird.  Aware  of  the  stir  of  his  en- 
trance, the  little  formalist  had  kept  her  eyes  fast- 
ened and  her  face  prettily  composed  during  the 
prayer.  It  was  not  hypocrisy,  there  was  no  one 
farther  from  a  hypocrite.  The  girl  had  been 
taught  to  behave:  to  look  up,  to  look  down,  to 
look  unconscious,  to  look  seriously  impressed  in 
church,  and  in  every  conjuncture  to  look  her  best. 
That  was  the  game  of  female  life,  and  she  played 
it  frankly.  Archie  was  the  one  person  in  church 
who  was  of  interest,  who  was  somebody  new, 
reputed  eccentric,  known  to  be  young,  and  a  laird, 
and  still  unseen  by  Christina.    Small  wonder  that, 

7 


98     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

as  she  stood  there  in  her  attitude  of  pretty  decency, 
her  mind  should  run  upon  him!  If  he  spared  a 
glance  in  her  direction,  he  should  know  she  was 
a  well-behaved  young  lady  who  had  been  to  Glas- 
gow. In  reason  he  must  admire  her  clothes,  and 
it  was  possible  that  he  should  think  her  pretty.  At 
that  her  heart  beat  the  least  thing  in  the  world; 
and  she  proceeded,  by  way  of  a  corrective,  to  call 
up  and  dismiss  a  series  of  fancied  pictures  of  the 
young  man  who  should  now,  by  rights,  be  looking 
at  her.  She  settled  on  the  plainest  of  them,  a 
pink  short  young  man  with  a  dish  face  and  no 
figure,  at  whose  admiration  she  could  afford  to 
smile;  but  for  all  that,  the  consciousness  of  his 
gaze  (which  was  really  fixed  on  Torrance  and 
his  mittens)  kept  her  in  something  of  a  flutter  till 
the  word  Amen.  Even  then,  she  was  far  too  well- 
bred  to  gratify  her  curiosity  with  any  impatience. 
She  resumed  her  seat  languidly  —  this  was  a  Glas- 
gow touch  —  she  composed  her  dress,  rearranged 
her  nosegay  of  primroses,  looked  first  in  front, 
then  behind  upon  the  other  side,  and  at  last  al- 
lowed her  eyes  to  move,  without  hurry,  in  the 
direction  of  the  Hermiston  pew.  For  a  moment, 
they  were  riveted.  Next  she  had  plucked  her 
gaze  home  again  like  a  tame  bird  who  should 
have  meditated  flight.  Possibilities  crowded  on 
her;  she  hung  over  the  future  and  grew  dizzy; 
the  image  of  this  young  man,  slim,  graceful,  dark, 
with  the  inscrutable  half-smile,  attracted  and  re- 
pelled her  like  a  chasm.  "  I  wonder,  will  I  have 
met  my  fate?  "  she  thought,  and  her  heart  swelled. 


WEIR    OF    HER  MI  ST  ON     99 

Torrance  was  got  some  way  into  his  first  ex- 
position, positing  a  deep  layer  of  texts  as  he  went 
along,  laying  the  foundations  of  his  discourse, 
which  was  to  deal  with  a  nice  point  in  divinity, 
before  Archie  suffered  his  eyes  to  wander.  They 
fell  first  of  all  on  Clem,  looking  insupportably 
prosperous  and  patronising  Torrance  with  the 
favour  of  a  modified  attention,  as  of  one  who  was 
used  to  better  things  in  Glasgow.  Though  he  had 
never  before  set  eyes  on  him,  Archie  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  identifying  him,  and  no  hesitation  in  pro- 
nouncing him  vulgar,  the  worst  of  the  family. 
Clem  was  leaning  lazily  forward  when  Archie  first 
saw  him.  Presently  he  leaned  nonchalantly  back; 
and  that  deadly  instrument,  the  maiden,  was  sud- 
denly unmasked  in  profile.  Though  not  quite  in 
the  front  of  the  fashion  (had  anybody  cared!), 
certain  artful  Glasgow  mantua-makers,  and  her 
own  inherent  taste,  had  arrayed  her  to  great  ad- 
vantage. Her  accoutrement  was,  indeed,  a  cause 
of  heart-burning,  and  almost  of  scandal,  in  that 
infinitesimal  kirk  company.  Mrs.  Hob  had  said 
her  say  at  Cauldstaneslap.  "  Daft-like !  "  she  had 
pronounced  it.  "A  jaiket  that  '11  no  meet ! 
Whaur  's  the  sense  of  a  jaiket  that  '11  no  button 
upon  you,  if  it  should  come  to  be  weet?  What 
do  ye  ca'  thir  things  ?  Demmy  brokens,  d'  ye  say  ? 
They  '11  be  brokens  wi'  a  vengeance  or  ye  can 
win  back!  Weel,  I  have  naething  to  do  wP  it  — 
it  's  no  good  taste."  Clem,  whose  purse  had  thus 
metamorphosed  his  sister,  and  who  was  not  in- 
sensible to  the  advertisement,  had  come  to  the 


ioo    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

rescue  with  a  "  Hoot,  woman !  What  do  you  ken 
of  good  taste  that  has  never  been  to  the  ceety?" 
And  Hob,  looking  on  the  girl  with  pleased  smiles, 
as  she  timidly  displayed  her  finery  in  the  midst 
of  the  dark  kitchen,  had  thus  ended  the  dispute: 
"  The  cutty  looks  weel,"  he  had  said,  "  and  it 's 
no  very  like  rain.  Wear  them  the  day,  hizzie; 
but  it  's  no  a  thing  to  make  a  practice  o\"  In  the 
breasts  of  her  rivals,  coming  to  the  kirk  very  con- 
scious of  white  under-linen,  and  their  faces  splen- 
did with  much  soap,  the  sight  of  the  toilet  had 
raised  a  storm  of  varying  emotion,  from  the  mere 
unenvious  admiration  that  was  expressed  in  the 
long-drawn  "Eh!"  to  the  angrier  feeling  that 
found  vent  in  an  emphatic  "  Set  her  up ! "  Her 
frock  was  of  straw-coloured  jaconet  muslin,  cut 
low  at  the  bosom  and  short  at  the  ankle,  so  as  to 
display  her  demi-bro quins  of  Regency  violet,  cross- 
ing with  many  straps  upon  a  yellow  cobweb  stock- 
ing. According  to  the  pretty  fashion  in  which 
our  grandmothers  did  not  hesitate  to  appear,  and 
our  great-aunts  went  forth  armed  for  the  pursuit 
and  capture  of  our  great-uncles,  the  dress  was 
drawn  up  so  as  to  mould  the  contour  of  both 
breasts,  and  in  the  nook  between  a  cairngorm 
brooch  maintained  it.  Here,  too,  surely  in  a  very 
enviable  position,  trembled  the  nosegay  of  prim- 
roses. She  wore  on  her  shoulders  —  or  rather, 
on  her  back  and  not  her  shoulders,  which  it  scarcely 
passed  —  a  French  coat  of  sarsenet,  tied  in  front 
with  Margate  braces,  and  of  the  same  colour  with 
her  violet  shoes.    About  her  face  clustered  a  dis- 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTO.N     101 

order  of  dark  ringlets,  a  little  garland  of  yellow 
French  roses  surmounted  her  brow,  and  the  whole 
was  crowned  by  a  village  hat  of  chipped  straw. 
Amongst  all  the  rosy  and  all  the  weathered  faces 
that  surrounded  her  in  church,  she  glowed  like 
an  open  flower  —  girl  and  raiment,  and  the  cairn- 
gorm that  caught  the  daylight  and  returned  it  in 
a  fiery  flash,  and  the  threads  of  bronze  and  gold 
that  played  in  her  hair. 

Archie  was  attracted  by  the  bright  thing  like  a 
child.  He  looked  at  her  again  and  yet  again,  and 
their  looks  crossed.  The  lip  was  lifted  from  her 
little  teeth.  He  saw  the  red  blood  work  vividly 
under  her  tawny  skin.  Her  eye,  which  was  great  as 
a  stag's,  struck  and  held  his  gaze.  He  knew  who 
she  must  be  —  Kirstie,  she  of  the  harsh  diminu- 
tive, his  housekeeper's  niece,  the  sister  of  the  rustic 
prophet,  Gib  —  and  he  found  in  her  the  answer  to 
his  wishes. 

Christina  felt  the  shock  of  their  encountering 
glances,  and  seemed  to  rise,  clothed  in  smiles,  into 
a  region  of  the  vague  and  bright.  But  the  grati- 
fication was  not  more  exquisite  than  it  was  brief. 
She  looked  away  abruptly,  and  immediately  began 
to  blame  herself  for  that  abruptness.  She  knew 
what  she  should  have  done,  too  late  —  turned 
slowly  with  her  nose  in  the  air.  And  meantime 
his  look  was  not  removed,  but  continued  to  play 
upon  her  like  a  battery  of  cannon  constantly  aimed, 
and  now  seemed  to  isolate  her  alone  with  him,  and 
now  seemed  to  uplift  her,  as  on  a  pillory,  before 
the  congregation.     For  Archie  continued  to  drink 


102     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

her  in  with  his  eyes,  even  as  a  wayfarer  comes  tc 
a  well-head  on  a  mountain,  and  stoops  his  face, 
and  drinks  with  thirst  unassuageable.  In  the  cleft 
of  her  little  breasts  the  fiery  eye  of  the  topaz 
and  the  pale  florets  of  primrose  fascinated  him. 
He  saw  the  breasts  heave,  and  the  flowers  shake 
with  the  heaving,  and  marvelled  what  should  so 
much  discompose  the  girl.  And  Christina  was 
conscious  of  his  gaze  —  saw  it,  perhaps,  with  the 
dainty  plaything  of  an  ear  that  peeped,  among  her 
ringlets;  she  was  conscious  of  changing  colour, 
conscious  of  her  unsteady  breath.  Like  a  creature 
tracked,  run  down,  surrounded,  she  sought  in  a 
dozen  ways  to  give  herself  a  countenance.  She 
used  her  handkerchief  —  it  was  a  really  fine  one 
—  then  she  desisted  in  a  panic :  "  He  would  only 
think  I  was  too  warm."  She  took  to  reading  in 
the  metrical  psalms,  and  then  remembered  it  was 
sermon-time.  Last  she  put  a  "  sugar-bool  "  in  her 
mouth,  and  the  next  moment  repented  of  the  step. 
It  was  such  a  homely-like  thing !  Mr.  Archie  would 
never  be  eating  sweeties  in  kirk;  and,  with  a 
palpable  effort,  she  swallowed  it  whole,  and  her 
colour  flamed  high.  At  this  signal  of  distress 
Archie  awoke  to  a  sense  of  his  ill-behaviour. 
What  had  he  been  doing?  He  had  been  exqui- 
sitely rude  in  church  to  the  niece  of  his  house- 
keeper ;  he  had  stared  like  a  lackey  and  a  libertine 
at  a  beautiful  and  modest  girl.  It  was  possible,  it 
was  even  likely,  he  would  be  presented  to  her  after 
service  in  the  kirk-yard,  and  then  how  was  he  to 
look  ?    And  there  was  no  excuse.    He  had  marked 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     103 

the  tokens  of  her  shame,  of  her  increasing  in- 
dignation, and  he  was  such  a  fool  that  he  had 
not  understood  them.  Shame  bowed  him  down, 
and  he  looked  resolutely  at  Mr.  Torrance;  who 
little  supposed,  good,  worthy  man,  as  he  continued 
to  expound  justification  by  faith,  what  was  his 
true  business:  to  play  the  part  of  derivative  to 
a  pair  of  children  at  the  old  game  of  falling  in 
love. 

Christina  was  greatly  relieved  at  first.  It  seemed 
to  her  that  she  was  clothed  again.  She  looked 
back  on  what  had  passed.  All  would  have  been 
right  if  she  had  not  blushed,  a  silly  fool!  There 
was  nothing  to  blush  at,  if  she  had  taken  a  sugar- 
bool.  Mrs.  MacTaggart,  the  elder's  wife  in  St. 
Enoch's,  took  them  often.  And  if  he  had  looked 
at  her,  what  was  more  natural  than  that  a  young 
gentleman  should  look  at  the  best-dressed  girl  in 
church?  And  at  the  same  time,  she  knew  far 
otherwise,  she  knew  there  was  nothing  casual  or 
ordinary  in  the  look,  and  valued  herself  on  its 
memory  like  a  decoration.  Well,  it  was  a  blessing 
he  had  found  something  else  to  look  at!  And 
presently  she  began  to  have  other  thoughts.  It 
was  necessary,  she  fancied,  that  she  should  put 
herself  right  by  a  repetition  of  the  incident,  better 
managed.  If  the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought, 
she  did  not  know  or  she  would  not  recognise  it. 
It  was  simply  as  a  manoeuvre  of  propriety,  as 
something  called  for  to  lessen  the  significance  of 
what  had  gone  before,  that  she  should  a  second 
time  meet  his  eyes,  and  this  time  without  blushing. 


io4    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

And  at  the  memory  of  the  blush,  she  blushed  again, 
and  became  one  general  blush  burning  from  head 
to  foot.  Was  ever  anything  so  indelicate,  so  for- 
ward, done  by  a  girl  before?  And  here  she  was, 
making  an  exhibition  of  herself  before  the  congre- 
gation about  nothing!  She  stole  a  glance  upon 
her  neighbours,  and  behold!  they  were  steadily 
indifferent,  and  Clem  had  gone  to  sleep.  And  still 
the  one  idea  was  becoming  more  and  more  potent 
with  her,  that  in  common  prudence  she  must  look 
again  before  the  service  ended.  Something  of  the 
same  sort  was  going  forward  in  the  mind  of 
Archie,  as  he  struggled  with  the  load  of  penitence. 
So  it  chanced  that,  in  the  flutter  of  the  moment 
when  the  last  psalm  was  given  out,  and  Torrance 
was  reading  the  verse,  and  the  leaves  of  every 
psalm-book  in  church  were  rustling  under  busy 
ringers,  two  stealthy  glances  were  sent  out  like 
antennae  among  the  pews  and  on  the  indifferent 
and  absorbed  occupants,  and  drew  timidly  nearer 
to  the  straight  line  between  Archie  and  Christina. 
They  met,  they  lingered  together  for  the  least 
fraction  of  time,  and  that  was  enough.  A  charge 
as  of  electricity  passed  through  Christina,  and  be- 
hold !  the  leaf  of  her  psalm-book  was  torn  across. 

Archie  was  outside  by  the  gate  of  the  grave- 
yard, conversing  with  Hob  and  the  minister  and 
shaking  hands  all  round  with  the  scattering  con- 
gregation, when  Clem  and  Christina  were  brought 
up  to  be  presented.  The  laird  took  off  his  hat  and 
bowed  to  her  with  grace  and  respect.  Christina 
made  her  Glasgow  curtsey  to  the  laird,  and  went 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     105 

on  again  up  the  road  for  Hermiston  and  Cauld- 
staneslap,  walking  fast,  breathing  hurriedly  with 
a  heightened  colour,  and  in  this  strange  frame  of 
mind,  that  when  she  was  alone  she  seemed  in  high 
happiness,  and  when  any  one  addressed  her  she 
resented  it  like  a  contradiction.  A  part  of  the 
way  she  had  the  company  of  some  neighbour  girls 
and  a  loutish  young  man;  never  had  they  seemed 
so  insipid,  never  had  she  made  herself  so  disagree- 
able. But  these  struck  aside  to  their  various  des- 
tinations or  were  out-walked  and  left  behind ;  and 
when  she  had  driven  off  with  sharp  words  the 
proffered  convoy  of  some  of  her  nephews  and 
nieces,  she  was  free  to  go  on  alone  up  Hermiston 
brae,  walking  on  air,  dwelling  intoxicated  among 
clouds  of  happiness.  Near  to  the  summit  she 
heard  steps  behind  her,  a  man's  steps,  light  and 
very  rapid.  She  knew  the  foot  at  once  and  walked 
the  faster.  "  If  it 's  me  he  's  wanting  he  can  run 
for  it,"  she  thought,  smiling. 

Archie  overtook  her  like  a  man  whose  mind 
was  made  up. 

"  Miss  Kirstie,"  he  began. 

"  Miss  Christina,  if  you  please,  Mr.  Weir,"  she 
interrupted.     "  I  canna  bear  the  contraction." 

"  You  forget  it  has  a  friendly  sound  for  me. 
Your  aunt  is  an  old  friend  of  mine  and  a  very 
good  one.  I  hope  we  shall  see  much  of  you  at 
Hermiston  ?  " 

"  My  aunt  and  my  sister-in-law  doesna  agree 
very  well.  Not  that  I  have  much  ado  with  it. 
But  still  when  I  'm  stopping  in  the  house,  if  I 


106     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

was  to  be  visiting  my  aunt,  it  would  not  look 
considerate-like." 

"  I  am  sorry,"  said  Archie. 

"  I  thank  you  kindly,  Mr.  Weir,"  she  said.  "  I 
whiles  think  myself  it 's  a  great  peety." 

"  Ah,  I  am  sure  your  voice  would  always  be  for 
peace !  "  he  cried. 

"  I  wouldna  be  too  sure  of  that,"  she  said.  "  I 
have  my  days  like  other  folk,  I  suppose." 

"  Do  you  know,  in  our  old  kirk,  among  our 
good  old  grey  dames,  you  made  an  effect  like 
sunshine." 

"  Ah,  but  that  would  be  my  Glasgow  clothes !  " 

"  I  did  not  think  I  was  so  much  under  the  in- 
fluence of  pretty  frocks." 

She  smiled  with  a  half  look  at  him.  "  There 's 
more  than  you ! "  she  said.  "  But  you  see  I  'm 
only  Cinderella.  I  '11  have  to  put  all  these  things 
by  in  my  trunk ;  next  Sunday  I  '11  be  as  grey  as 
the  rest.  They  're  Glasgow  clothes,  you  see,  and 
it  would  never  do  to  make  a  practice  of  it.  It 
would  seem  terrible  conspicuous." 

By  that  they  were  come  to  the  place  where  their 
ways  severed.  The  old  grey  moors  were  all  about 
them;  in  the  midst  a  few  sheep  wandered;  and 
they  could  see  on  the  one  hand  the  straggling 
caravan  scaling  the  braes  in  front  of  them  for 
Cauldstaneslap,  and  on  the  other,  the  contingent 
from  Hermiston  bending  off  and  beginning  to 
disappear  by  detachments  into  the  policy  gate. 
It  was  in  these  circumstances  that  they  turned  to 
say  farewell,  and  deliberately  exchanged  a  glance 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     107 

as  they  shook  hands.  All  passed  as  it  should, 
genteelly ;  and  in  Christina's  mind,  as  she  mounted 
the  first  steep  ascent  for  Cauldstaneslap,  a  gratify- 
ing sense  of  triumph  prevailed  over  the  recollec- 
tion of  minor  lapses  and  mistakes.  She  had  kilted 
her  gown,  as  she  did  usually  at  that  rugged  pass; 
but  when  she  spied  Archie  still  standing  and  gaz- 
ing after  her,  the  skirts  came  down  again  as  if  by 
enchantment.  Here  was  a  piece  of  nicety  for  that 
upland  parish,  where  the  matrons  marched  with 
their  coats  kilted  in  the  rain,  and  the  lasses  walked 
barefoot  to  kirk  through  the  dust  of  summer,  and 
went  bravely  down  by  the  burnside,  and  sat  on 
stones  to  make  a  public  toilet  before  entering!  It 
was  perhaps  an  air  wafted  from  Glasgow ;  or  per- 
haps it  marked  a  stage  of  that  dizziness  of  grati- 
fied vanity,  in  which  the  instinctive  act  passed 
unperceived.  He  was  looking  after !  She  un- 
loaded her  bosom  of  a  prodigious  sigh  that  was 
all  pleasure,  and  betook  herself  to  run.  When  she 
had  overtaken  the  stragglers  of  her  family,  she 
caught  up  the  niece  whom  she  had  so  recently 
repulsed,  and  kissed  and  slapped  her,  and  drove 
her  away  again,  and  ran  after  her  with  pretty  cries 
and  laughter.  Perhaps  she  thought  the  laird  might 
still  be  looking!  But  it  chanced  the  little  scene 
came  under  the  view  of  eyes  less  favourable;  for 
she  overtook  Mrs.  Hob  marching  with  Clem  and 
Dand. 

"  You  're  shurely  fey,1  lass !  "  quoth  Dandie. 

1  Unlike  yourself,  strange,  as  persons  are  observed  to  be  in  the 
hour  of  approaching  death  or  calamity. 


108     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

"  Think  shame  to  yersel',  miss !  "  said  the  stri- 
dent Mrs.  Hob.  "  Is  this  the  gait  to  guide  yersel' 
on  the  way  hame  frae  kirk  ?  You  're  shiirely  no 
sponsible  the  day.  And  anyway  I  would  mind  my 
guid  claes." 

"  Hoot !  "  said  Christina,  and  went  on  before 
them  head  in  air,  treading  the  rough  track  with 
the  tread  of  a  wild  doe. 

She  was  in  love  with  herself,  her  destiny,  the 
air  of  the  hills,  the  benediction  of  the  sun.  All 
the  way  home,  she  continued  under  the  intoxica- 
tion of  these  sky-scraping  spirits.  At  table  she 
could  talk  freely  of  young  Hermiston;  gave  her 
opinion  of  him  off-hand  and  with  a  loud  voice, 
that  he  was  a  handsome  young  gentleman,  real 
well-mannered  and  sensible-like,  but  it  was  a  pity 
he  looked  doleful.  Only  —  the  moment  after  — 
a  memory  of  his  eyes  in  church  embarrassed  her. 
But  for  this  inconsiderable  check,  all  through  meal- 
time she  had  a  good  appetite,  and  she  kept  them 
laughing  at  table,  until  Gib  (who  had  returned 
before  them  from  Crossmichael  and  his  separative 
worship)  reproved  the  whole  of  them  for  their 
levity. 

Singing  "  in  to  herself  "  as  she  went,  her  mind 
still  in  the  turmoil  of  glad  confusion,  she  rose  and 
tripped  up-stairs  to  a  little  loft,  lighted  by  four 
panes  in  the  gable,  where  she  slept  with  one  of 
her  nieces.  The  niece,  who  followed  her,  presum- 
ing on  "  Auntie's  "  high  spirits,  was  flounced  out 
of  the  apartment  with  small  ceremony,  and  retired, 
smarting  and  half  tearful,  to  bury  her  woes  in  the 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     109 

byre  among  the  hay.  Still  humming,  Christina 
divested  herself  of  her  finery,  and  put  her  treas- 
ures one  by  one  in  her  great  green  trunk.  The 
last  of  these  was  the  psalm-book;  it  was  a  fine 
piece,  the  gift  of  Mistress  Clem,  in  distinct  old- 
faced  type,  on  paper  that  had  begun  to  grow  foxy 
in  the  warehouse  —  not  by  service  —  and  she  was 
used  to  wrap  it  in  a  handkerchief  every  Sunday 
after  its  period  of  service  was  over,  and  bury  it 
end-wise  at  the  head  of  her  trunk.  As  she  now 
took  it  in  hand  the  book  fell  open  where  the  leaf  was 
torn,  and  she  stood  and  gazed  upon  that  evidence 
of  her  by-gone  discomposure.  There  returned 
again  the  vision  of  the  two  brown  eyes  staring 
at  her,  intent  and  bright,  out  of  that  dark  cor- 
ner of  the  kirk.  The  whole  appearance  and  atti- 
tude, the  smile,  the  suggested  gesture  of  young 
Hermiston  came  before  her  in  a  flash  at  the  sight 
of  the  torn  page.  "  I  was  surely  fey !  "  she  said, 
echoing  the  words  of  Dandie,  and  at  the  suggested 
doom  her  high  spirits  deserted  her.  She  flung  her- 
self prone  upon  the  bed,  and  lay  there,  holding  the 
psalm-book  in  her  hands  for  hours,  for  the  more 
part  in  a  mere  stupor  of  unconsenting  pleasure  and 
unreasoning  fear.  The  fear  was  superstitious; 
there  came  up  again  and  again  in  her  memory 
Dandie's  ill-omened  words,  and  a  hundred  grisly 
and  black  tales  out  of  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
read  her  a  commentary  on  their  force.  The  pleas- 
ure was  never  realised.  You  might  say  the  joints 
of  her  body  thought  and  remembered,  and  were 
gladdened,  but  her  essential  self,  in  the  immediate 


no    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

theatre  of  consciousness,  talked  feverishly  of  some- 
thing else,  like  a  nervous  person  at  a  fire.  The 
image  that  she  most  complacently  dwelt  on  was 
that  of  Miss  Christina  in  her  character  of  the  Fair 
Lass  of  Cauldstaneslap,  carrying  all  before  her  in 
the  straw-coloured  frock,  the  violet  mantle,  and  the 
yellow  cobweb  stockings.  Archie's  image,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  it  presented  itself  was  never  wel- 
comed —  far  less  welcomed  with  any  ardour,  and 
it  was  exposed  at  times  to  merciless  criticism.  In 
the  long,  vague  dialogues  she  held  in  her  mind, 
often  with  imaginary,  often  with  unrealised  inter- 
locutors, Archie,  if  he  were  referred  to  at  all,  came 
in  for  savage  handling.  He  was  described  as 
"  looking  like  a  stork,"  "  staring  like  a  caulf,"  "  a 
face  like  a  ghaist's."  "  Do  you  call  that  manners  ?  " 
she  said ;  or,  "  I  soon  put  him  in  his  place." 
"'Miss  Christina,  if  you  please,  Mr.  Weir!'  says 
I,  and  just  flyped  up  my  skirt  tails."  With  gabble 
like  'this  she  would  entertain  herself  long  whiles 
together,  and  then  her  eye  would  perhaps  fall  on 
the  torn  leaf,  and  the  eyes  of  Archie  would  appear 
again  from  the  darkness  of  the  wall,  and  the  vol- 
uble words  deserted  her,  and  she  would  lie  still 
and  stupid,  and  think  upon  nothing  with  devotion, 
and  be  sometimes  raised  by  a  quiet  sigh.  Had  a 
doctor  of  medicine  come  into  that  loft,  he  would 
have  diagnosed  a  healthy,  well-developed,  emi- 
nently vivacious  lass  lying  on  her  face  in  a  fit  of  the 
sulks ;  not  one  who  had  just  contracted,  or  was  just 
contracting,  a  mortal  sickness  of  the  mind  which 
should  yet  carry  her  towards  death  and  despair. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     in 

Had  it  been  a  doctor  of  psychology,  he  might  have 
been  pardoned  for  divining  in  the  girl  a  passion 
of  childish  vanity,  self-love  in  excelsis,  and  no 
more.  It  is  to  be  understood  that  I  have  been  paint- 
ing chaos  and  describing  the  inarticulate.  Every 
lineament  that  appears  is  too  precise,  almost  every 
word  used  too  strong.  Take  a  finger-post  in  the 
mountains  on  a  day  of  rolling  mists;  I  have  but 
copied  the  names  that  appear  upon  the  pointers, 
the  names  of  definite  and  famous  cities  far  distant, 
and  now  perhaps  basking  in  sunshine;  but  Chris- 
tina remained  all  these  hours,  as  it  were,  at  the 
foot  of  the  post  itself,  not  moving,  and  enveloped 
in  mutable  and  blinding  wreaths  of  haze. 

The  day  was  growing  late  and  the  sunbeams  long 
and  level,  when  she  sat  suddenly  up,  and  wrapped 
in  its  handkerchief  and  put  by  that  psalm-book 
which  had  already  played  a  part  so  decisive  in  the 
first  chapter  of  her  love-story.  In  the  absence  of 
the  mesmerist's  eye,  we  are  told  nowadays  that  the 
head  of  a  bright  nail  may  fill  his  place,  if  it  be  stead- 
fastly regarded.  So  that  torn  page  had  riveted  her 
attention  on  what  might  else  have  been  but  little, 
and  perhaps  soon  forgotten;  while  the  ominous 
words  of  Dandie  —  heard,  not  heeded,  and  still 
remembered  —  had  lent  to  her  thoughts,  or  rather 
to  her  mood,  a  cast  of  solemnity,  and  that  idea  of 
Fate  —  a  pagan  Fate,  uncontrolled  by  any  Chris- 
tian deity,  obscure,  lawless,  and  august  —  moving 
indissuadably  in  the  affairs  of  Christian  men. 
Thus  even  that  phenomenon  of  love  at  first  sight, 
which  is  so  rare  and  seems  so  simple  and  vio- 


ii2     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

lent,  like  a  disruption  of  life's  tissue,  may  be  de- 
composed into  a  sequence  of  accidents  happily 
concurring. 

She  put  on  a  grey  frock  and  a  pink  kerchief, 
looked  at  herself  a  moment  with  approval  in  the 
small  square  of  glass  that  served  her  for  a  toilet 
mirror,  and  went  softly  down-stairs  through  the 
sleeping  house  that  resounded  with  the  sound  of 
afternoon  snoring.  Just  outside  the  door  Dandie 
was  sitting  with  a  book  in  his  hand,  not  read- 
ing, only  honouring  the  Sabbath  by  a  sacred 
vacancy  of  mind.  She  came  near  him  and  stood 
still. 

"  I  'm  for  off  up  the  muirs,  Dandie,"  she  said. 

There  was  something  unusually  soft  in  her  tones 
that  made  him  look  up.  She  was  pale,  her  eyes 
dark  and  bright;  no  trace  remained  of  the  levity 
of  the  morning. 

"  Ay,  lass  ?  Ye  '11  have  ye're  ups  and  downs 
like  me,  I  'm  thinkin',"  he  observed. 

"  What  for  do  ye  say  that  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  O,  for  naething,"  says  Dand.  "  Only  I  think 
ye  're  mair  like  me  than  the  lave  of  them.  Ye  Ve 
mair  of  the  poetic  temper,  tho'  Guid  kens  little 
enough  of  the  poetic  taalent.  It 's  an  ill  gift  at 
the  best.  Look  at  yoursel'.  At  denner  you  were  all 
sunshine  and  flowers  and  laughter,  and  now  you  're 
like  the  star  of  evening  on  a  lake." 

She  drank  in  this  hackneyed  compliment  like 
wine,  and  it  glowed  in  her  veins. 

"  But  I  'm  saying,  Dand  "  —  she  came  nearer 
him  —  "  I  'm  for  the  muirs.    I  must  have  a  braith 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     113 

of  air.  If  Clem  was  to  be  speiring  for  me,  try  and 
quaiet  him,  will  ye  no?  " 

"  What  way?  "  said  Dandie.  "  I  ken  but  the  ae 
way,  and  that 's  leein'.  I  '11  say  ye  had  a  sair  heed, 
if  ye  like" 

"  But  I  havena,"  she  objected. 

"  I  daur  say  not,"  he  returned.  "  I  said  I  would 
say  ye  had ;  and  if  ye  like  to  nay-say  me  when  ye 
come  back,  it  '11  no  mateerially  maitter,  for  my 
chara'ter  's  clean  gane  a'ready  past  reca\" 

"  O,  Dand,  are  ye  a  leear  ?  "  she  asked,  lingering. 

"  Folks  say  sae,"  replied  the  bard. 

"  Wha  says  sae?  "  she  pursued. 

"  Them  that  should  ken  the  best,"  he  responded. 
"  The  lassies,  for  ane." 

"  But,  Dand,  you  would  never  lee  to  me?  ?  she 
asked. 

"  I  '11  leave  that  for  your  pairt  of  it,  ye  girzie," 
said  he.  "  Ye  '11  lee  to  me  fast  eneuch,  when  ye  hae 
gotten  a  jo.  I  'm  tellin'  ye  and  it 's  true ;  when 
you  have  a  jo,  Miss  Kirstie,  it  '11  be  for  guid  and  ill. 
I  ken:  I  was  made  that  way  mysel',  but  the  deil 
was  in  my  luck!  Here,  gang  awa  wi'  ye  to  your 
muirs,  and  let  me  be ;  I  'm  in  an  hour  of  inspirau- 
tion,  ye  upsetting  tawpie !  " 

But  she  clung  to  her  brother's  neighbourhood, 
she  knew  not  why. 

"  Will  ye  no  gie  's  a  kiss,  Dand  ?  "  she  said.  "  I 
aye  likit  ye  fine." 

He  kissed  her  and  considered  her  a  moment ;  he 
found  something  strange  in  her.  But  he  was  a 
libertine  through   and  through,   nourished   equal 

8 


ii4    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

contempt  and  suspicion  of  all  womankind,  and 
paid  his  way  among  them  habitually  with  idle 
compliments. 

"  Gae  wa'  wi'  ye !  "  said  he.  "  Ye  're  a  dentie 
baby,  and  be  content  wi'  that !  " 

That  was  Dandie's  way;  a  kiss  and  a  comfit  to 
Jenny  —  a  bawbee  and  my  blessing  to  Jill  —  and 
good-night  to  the  whole  clan  of  ye,  my  dears! 
When  anything  approached  the  serious,  it  became 
a  matter  for  men,  he  both  thought  and  said.  Wo- 
men, when  they  did  not  absorb,  were  only  children 
to  be  shoo'd  away.  Merely  in  his  character  of  con- 
noisseur, however,  Dandie  glanced  carelessly  after 
his  sister,  as  she  crossed  the  meadow.  "  The 
brat 's  no  that  bad !  "  he  thought  with  surprise,  for 
though  he  had  just  been  paying  her  compliments, 
he  had  not  really  looked  at  her.  "Hey!  what's 
yon  ?  "  For  the  grey  dress  was  cut  with  short 
sleeves  and  skirts,  and  displayed  her  trim  strong 
legs  clad  in  pink  stockings  of  the  same  shade  as  the 
kerchief  she  wore  round  her  shoulders,  and  that 
shimmered  as  she  went.  This  was  not  her  way  in 
undress;  he  knew  her  ways  and  the  ways  of  the 
whole  sex  in  the  country-side,  no  one  better ;  when 
they  did  not  go  barefoot,  they  wore  stout  "  rig  and 
furrow  "  woollen  hose  of  an  invisible  blue  mostly, 
when  they  were  not  black  outright;  and  Dandie, 
at  sight  of  this  daintiness,  put  two  and  two 
together.  It  was  a  silk  handkerchief,  then  they 
would  be  silken  hose;  they  matched  —  then  the 
whole  outfit  was  a  present  of  Clem's,  a  costly 
present,  and  not  something  to  be  worn  through 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     115 

bog  and  brier,  or  on  a  late  afternoon  of  Sunday. 
He  whistled.  "  My  denty  May,  either  your  heid  's 
fair  turned,  or  there  's  some  on-goings ! "  he  ob- 
served, and  dismissed  the  subject. 

She  went  slowly  at  first,  but  ever  straighter  and 
faster  for  the  Cauldstaneslap,  a  pass  among  the 
hills  to  which  the  farm  owed  its  name.  The  Slap 
opened  like  a  doorway  between  two  rounded  hil- 
locks; and  through  this  ran  the  short  cut  to  Her- 
miston.  Immediately  on  the  other  side  it  went 
down  through  the  Deil's  Hags,  a  considerable 
marshy  hollow  of  the  hilltops,  full  of  springs, 
and  crouching  junipers,  and  pools  where  the  black 
peat-water  slumbered.  There  was  no  view  from 
here.  A  man  might  have  sat  upon  the  Praying 
Weaver's  Stone  a  half-century,  and  seen  none  but 
the  Cauldstaneslap  children  twice  in  the  twenty- 
four  hours  on  their  way  to  the  school  and  back 
again,  an  occasional  shepherd,  the  irruption  of  a 
clan  of  sheep,  or  the  birds  who  haunted  about  the 
springs,  drinking  and  shrilly  piping.  So,  when 
she  had  once  passed  the  Slap,  Kirstie  was  received 
into  seclusion.  She  looked  back  a  last  time  at  the 
farm.  It  still  lay  deserted  except  for  the  figure  of 
Dandie,  who  was  now  seen  to  be  scribbling  in  his 
lap,  the  hour  of  expected  inspiration  having  come 
to  him  at  last.  Thence  she  passed  rapidly  through 
the  morass,  and  came  to  the  further  end  of  it,  where 
a  sluggish  burn  discharges,  and  the  path  for  Her- 
miston  accompanies  it  on  the  beginning  of  its  down- 
ward path.  From  this  corner  a  wide  view  was 
opened  to  her  of  the  whole  stretch  of  braes  upon 


n6     WEIR    OF    HERM1STON 

the  other  side,  still  sallow  and  in  places  rusty  with 
the  winter,  with  the  path  marked  boldly,  here  and 
there  by  the  burnside  a  tuft  of  birches,  and  —  three 
miles  off  as  the  crow  flies  —  from  its  enclosures 
and  young  plantations,  the  windows  of  Hermiston 
glittering  in  the  western  sun. 

Here  she  sat  down  and  waited,  and  looked  for 
a  long  time  at  these  far-away  bright  panes  of  glass. 
It  amused  her  to  have  so  extended  a  view,  she 
thought.  It  amused  her  to  see  the  house  of  Her- 
miston —  to  see  "  folk  " ;  and  there  was  an  indis- 
tinguishable human  unit,  perhaps  the  gardener, 
visibly  sauntering  on  the  gravel  paths. 

By  the  time  the  sun  was  down  and  all  the  easterly 
braes  lay  plunged  in  clear  shadow,  she  was  aware 
of  another  figure  coming  up  the  path  at  a  most 
unequal  rate  of  approach,  now  half  running,  now 
pausing  and  seeming  to  hesitate.  She  watched 
him  at  first  with  a  total  suspension  of  thought. 
She  held  her  thought  as  a  person  holds  his  breath- 
ing. Then  she  consented  to  recognise  him. 
"  He  '11  no  be  coming  here,  he  canna  be ;  it  's  no 
possible."  And  there  began  to  grow  upon  her  a 
subdued  choking  suspense.  He  was  coming;  his 
hesitations  had  quite  ceased,  his  step  grew  firm 
and  swift;  no  doubt  remained;  and  the  question 
loomed  up  before  her  instant:  what  was  she  to 
do?  It  was  all  very  well  to  say  that  her  brother 
was  a  laird  himself;  it  was  all  very  well  to  speak 
of  casual  intermarriages  and  to  count  cousinship, 
like  Auntie  Kirstie.  The  difference  in  their  social 
station  was  trenchant ;  propriety,  prudence,  all  that 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     117 

she  had  ever  learned,  all  that  she  knew,  bade  her 
flee.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  cup  of  life  now 
offered  to  her  was  too  enchanting.  For  one  mo- 
ment, she  saw  the  question  clearly,  and  definitely 
made  her  choice.  She  stood  up  and  showed  herself 
an  instant  in  the  gap  relieved  upon  the  sky  line; 
and  the  next,  fled  trembling  and  sat  down  glowing 
with  excitement  on  the  Weaver's  Stone.  She  shut 
her  eyes,  seeking,  praying  for  composure.  Her 
hand  shook  in  her  lap,  and  her  mind  was  full  of 
incongruous  and  futile  speeches.  What  was  there 
to  make  a  work  about  ?  She  could  take  care  of  her- 
self, she  supposed!  There  was  no  harm  in  seeing 
the  laird.  It  was  the  best  thing  that  could  happen. 
She  would  mark  a  proper  distance  to  him  once  and 
for  all.  Gradually  the  wheels  of  her  nature  ceased 
to  go  round  so  madly,  and  she  sat  in  passive  expec- 
tation, a  quiet,  solitary  figure  in  the  midst  of  the 
grey  moss.  I  have  said  she  was  no  hypocrite,  but 
here  I  am  at  fault.  She  never  admitted  to  herself 
that  she  had  come  up  the  hill  to  look  for  Archie. 
And  perhaps  after  all  she  did  not  know,  perhaps 
came  as  a  stone  falls.  For  the  steps  of  love  in  the 
young,  and  especially  in  girls,  are  instinctive  and 
unconscious. 

In  the  meantime  Archie  was  drawing  rapidly 
near,  and  he  at  least  was  consciously  seeking  her 
neighbourhood.  The  afternoon  had  turned  to 
ashes  in  his  mouth;  the  memory  of  the  girl  had 
kept  him  from  reading  and  drawn  him  as  with 
cords ;  and  at  last,  as  the  cool  of  the  evening  began 
to  come  on,  he  had  taken  his  hat  and  set  forth, 


u8     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

with  a  smothered  ejaculation,  by  the  moor  path  to 
Cauldstaneslap.  He  had  no  hope  to  find  her;  he 
took  the  off  chance  without  expectation  of  result 
and  to  relieve  his  uneasiness.  The  greater  was  his 
surprise,  as  he  surmounted  the  slope  and  came  into 
the  hollow  of  the  Deil's  Hags,  to  see  there,  like  an 
answer  to  his  wishes,  the  little  womanly  figure  in 
the  grey  dress  and  the  pink  kerchief  sitting  little, 
and  low,  and  lost,  and  acutely  solitary,  in  these 
desolate  surroundings  and  on  the  weather-beaten 
stone  of  the  dead  weaver.  Those  things  that  still 
smacked  of  winter  were  all  rusty  about  her,  and 
those  things  that  already  relished  of  the  spring  had 
put  forth  the  tender  and  lively  colours  of  the  season. 
Even  in  the  unchanging  face  of  the  death-stone 
changes  were  to  be  remarked;  and  in  the  chan- 
nelled-lettering,  the  moss  began  to  renew  itself  in 
jewels  of  green.  By  an  after-thought  that  was  a 
stroke  of  art,  she  had  turned  up  over  her  head  the 
back  of  the  kerchief ;  so  that  it  now  framed  becom- 
ingly her  vivacious  and  yet  pensive  face.  Her  feet 
were  gathered  under  her  on  the  one  side,  and  she 
leaned  on  her  bare  arm,  which  showed  out  strong 
and  round,  tapered  to  a  slim  wrist,  and  shimmered 
in  the  fading  light. 

\  Young  Hermiston  was  struck  with  a  certain 
chill.  He  was  reminded  that  he  now  dealt  in  seri- 
ous matters  of  life  and  death.  This  was  a  grown 
woman  he  was  approaching,  endowed  with  her 
mysterious  potencies  and  attractions,  the  treasury 
of  the  continued  race,  and  he  was  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  the  average  of  his  sex  and  age.    He 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     119 

had  a  certain  delicacy  which  had  preserved  him 
hitherto  unspotted,  and  which  (had  either  of  them 
guessed  it)  made  him  a  more  dangerous  companion 
when  his  heart  should  be  really  stirred.  His  throat 
was  dry  as  he  came  near ;  but  the  appealing  sweet- 
ness of  her  smile  stood  between  them  like  a  guar- 
dian angel. 

For  she  turned  to  him  and  smiled,  though  with- 
out rising.  There  was  a  shade  in  this  cavalier 
greeting  that  neither  of  them  perceived:  neither 
he,  who  simply  thought  it  gracious  and  charming 
as  herself;  nor  yet  she,  who  did  not  observe  (quick 
as  she  was)  the  difference  between  rising  to  meet 
the  laird  and  remaining  seated  to  receive  the 
expected  admirer. 

"  Are  ye  stepping  west,  Hermiston  ?  "  said  she, 
giving  him  his  territorial  name  after  the  fashion 
of  the  country-side. 

"  I  was,"  said  he  a  little  hoarsely,  "  but  I  think  I 
will  be  about  the  end  of  my  stroll  now.  Are  you 
like  me,  Miss  Christina  ?  the  house  would  not  hold 
me.    I  came  here  seeking  air." 

He  took  his  seat  at  the  other  end  of  the  tomb- 
stone and  studied  her,  wondering  what  was  she. 
There  was  infinite  import  in  the  question  alike  for 
her  and  him. 

"  Ay,"  she  said.  "  I  couldna  bear  the  roof  either. 
It 's  a  habit  of  mine  to  come  up  here  about  the 
gloaming  when  it 's  quaiet  and  caller." 

"  It  was  a  habit  of  my  mother's  also,"  he  said 
gravely.  The  recollection  half  startled  him  as  he 
expressed  it.    He  looked  around.    "  I  have  scarce 


120    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

been  here  since.     It 's  peaceful,"  he  said,  with  a 
long  breath. 

"  It 's  no  like  Glasgow,"  she  replied.  "  A  weary 
place,  yon  Glasgow!  But  what  a  day  have  I 
had  for  my  hame-coming,  and  what  a  bonny 
evening !  " 

"  Indeed,  it  was  a  wonderful  day,"  said  Archie. 
"  I  think  I  will  remember  it  years  and  years  until  I 
come  to  die.  On  days  like  this  —  I  do  not  know 
if  you  feel  as  I  do  —  but  everything  appears  so 
brief,  and  fragile,  and  exquisite,  that  I  am  afraid 
to  touch  life.  We  are  here  for  so  short  a  time; 
and  all  the  old  people  before  us  —  Rutherfords  of 
Hermiston,  Elliotts  of  the  Cauldstaneslap  —  that 
were  here  but  awhile  since,  riding  about  and 
keeping  up  a  great  noise  in  this  quiet  corner 
—  making  love  too,  and  marrying  —  why,  where 
are  they  now  ?  It 's  deadly  commonplace,  but 
after  all,  the  commonplaces  are  the  great  poetic 
truths." 

He  was  sounding  her,  semi-consciously,  to  see  if 
she  could  understand  him;  to  learn  if  she  were 
only  an  animal  the  colour  of  flowers,  or  had  a 
soul  in  her  to  keep  her  sweet.  She,  on  her  part, 
her  means  well  in  hand,  watched,  womanlike,  for 
any  opportunity  to  shine,  to  abound  in  his  humour, 
whatever  that  might  be.  The  dramatic  artist,  that 
lies  dormant  or  only  half  awake  in  most  human 
beings,  had  in  her  sprung  to  his  feet  in  a  divine 
fury,  and  chance  had  served  her  well.  She  looked 
upon  him  with  a  subdued  twilight  look  that  be- 
came the  hour  of  the  day  and  the  train  of  thought ; 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     121 

earnestness  shone  through  her  like  stars  in  the 
purple  west;  and  from  the  great  but  controlled 
upheaval  of  her  whole  nature  there  passed  into 
her  voice,  and  rang  in  her  lightest  words,  a  thrill 
of  emotion. 

"Have  you  mind  of  Dand's  song?"  she  an- 
swered. "  I  think  he  '11  have  been  trying  to  say 
what  you  have  been  thinking." 

"  No,  I  never  heard  it,"  he  said.  "  Repeat  it  to 
me,  can  you  ?  " 

"  It 's  nothing  wanting  the  tune,"  said  Kirstie. 

"  Then  sing  it  me,"  said  he. 

"  On  the  Lord's  Day  ?  That  would  never  do, 
Mr.  Weir!" 

"I  am  afraid  I  am  not  so  strict  a  keeper  of 
the  Sabbath,  and  there  is  no  one  in  this  place 
to  hear  us,  unless  the  poor  old  ancient  under  the 
stone." 

"  No  that  I  'm  thinking  that  really,"  she  said. 
"  By  my  way  of  thinking,  it 's  just  as  serious  as 
a  psalm.     Will  I  sooth  it  to  ye,  then?  " 

"  If  you  please,"  said  he,  and,  drawing  near  to 
her  on  the  tombstone,  prepared  to  listen. 

She  sat  up  as  if  to  sing.  "  I  '11  only  can  sooth 
it  to  ye,"  she  explained.  "  I  wouldna  like  to  sing 
out  loud  on  the  Sabbath.  I  think  the  birds  would 
carry  news  of  it  to  Gilbert,"  and  she  smiled.  "  It 's 
about  the  Elliotts,"  she  continued,  "  and  I  think 
there 's  few  bonnier  bits  in  the  book-poets,  though 
Dand  has  never  got  printed  yet." 

And  she  began,  in  the  low,  clear  tones  of  her 
half-voice,  now  sinking  almost  to  a  whisper,  now 


122     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

rising  to  a  particular  note  which  was  her  best,  and 
which  Archie  learned  to  wait  for  with  growing 
emotion : 

O  they  rade  in  the  rain,  in  the  days  that  are  gane, 

In  the  rain  and  the  wind  and  the  lave, 
They  shoutit  in  the  ha'  and  they  routit  on  the  hill, 
But  they  're  a'  quaitit  noo  in  the  grave. 
Auld,  auld  Elliotts,  clay-cauld  Elliotts,  dour,  bauld  Elliotts  of 
auld! 

All  the  time  she  sang  she  looked  steadfastly 
before  her,  her  knees  straight,  her  hands  upon  her 
knee,  her  head  cast  back  and  up.  The  expression 
was  admirable  throughout,  for  had  she  not  learned 
it  from  the  lips  and  under  the  criticism  of  the 
author?  When  it  was  done,  she  turned  upon 
Archie  a  face  softly  bright,  and  eyes  gently  suf- 
fused and  shining  in  the  twilight,  and  his  heart 
rose  and  went  out  to  her  with  boundless  pity  and 
sympathy.  His  question  was  answered.  She  was 
a  human  being  tuned  to  a  sense  of  the  tragedy  of 
life ;  there  were  pathos  and  music  and  a  great  heart 
in  the  girl. 

He  arose  instinctively,  she  also;  for  she  saw 
she  had  gained  a  point,  and  scored  the  impression 
deeper,  and  she  had  wit  enough  left  to  flee  upon 
a  victory.  They  were  but  commonplaces  that 
remained  to  be  exchanged,  but  the  low,  moved 
voices  in  which  they  passed  made  them  sacred  in 
the  memory.  In  the  falling  greyness  of  the  even- 
ing he  watched  her  figure  winding  through  the 
morass,  saw  it  turn  a  last  time  and  wave  a  hand, 
and  then  pass  through  the  Slap ;  and  it  seemed  to 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     123 

him  as  if  something  went  along  with  her  out  of 
the  deepest  of  his  heart.  And  something  surely 
had  come,  and  come  to  dwell  there.  He  had 
retained  from  childhood  a  picture,  now  half  obliter- 
ated by  the  passage  of  time  and  the  multitude  of 
fresh  impressions,  of  his  mother  telling  him,  with 
the  fluttered  earnestness  of  her  voice,  and  often 
with  dropping  tears,  the  tale  of  the  "  Praying 
Weaver,"  on  the  very  scene  of  his  brief  tragedy 
and  long  repose.  And  now  there  was  a  companion 
piece;  and  he  beheld,  and  he  should  behold  for 
ever,  Christina  perched  on  the  same  tomb,  in  the 
grey  colours  of  the  evening,  gracious,  dainty,  per- 
fect as  a  flower,  and  she  also  singing  — 

Of  old,  unhappy  far-off  things, 
And  battles  long  ago, 

—  of  their  common  ancestors  now  dead,  of  their 
rude  wars  composed,  their  weapons  buried  with 
them,  and  of  these  strange  changelings,  their  de- 
scendants, who  lingered  a  little  in  their  places,  and 
would  soon  be  gone  also,  and  perhaps  sung  of  by 
others  at  the  gloaming  hour.  By  one  of  the  uncon- 
scious arts  of  tenderness  the  two  women  were  en- 
shrined together  in  his  memory.  Tears,  in  that 
hour  of  sensibility,  came  into  his  eyes  indifferently 
at  the  thought  of  either,  and  the  girl,  from  being 
something  merely  bright  and  shapely,  was  caught 
up  into  the  zone  of  things  serious  as  life  and  death 
and  his  dead  mother.  So  that  in  all  ways  and  on 
either  side,  Fate  played  his  game  artfully  with  this 
poor    pair   of   children.      The   generations    were 


i24     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

prepared,  the  pangs  were  made  ready,  before  the 
curtain  rose  on  the  dark  drama. 

In  the  same  moment  of  time  that  she  disappeared 
from  Archie  there  opened  before  Kirstie's  eyes  the 
cup-like  hollow  in  which  the  farm  lay.  She  saw, 
some  five  hundred  feet  below  her,  the  house  making 
itself  bright  with  candles,  and  this  was  a  broad 
hint  to  her  to  hurry.  For  they  were  only  kindled 
on  a  Sabbath  night  with  a  view  to  that  family 
worship  which  rounded  in  the  incomparable  tedium 
of  the  day  and  brought  on  the  relaxation  of 
supper.  Already  she  knew  that  Robert  must  be 
within-sides  at  the  head  of  the  table,  "  waling  the 
portions  " ;  for  it  was  Robert  in  his  quality  of 
family  priest  and  judge,  not  the  gifted  Gilbert,  who 
officiated.  She  made  good  time  accordingly  down 
the  steep  ascent,  and  came  up  to  the  door  panting 
as  the  three  younger  brothers,  all  roused  at  last 
from  slumber,  stood  together  in  the  cool  and 
the  dark  of  the  evening  with  a  fry  of  nephews 
and  nieces  about  them,  chatting  and  awaiting  the 
expected  signal.  She  stood  back;  she  had  no 
mind  to  direct  attention  to  her  late  arrival  or  to 
her  labouring  breath. 

"  Kirstie,  ye  have  shaved  it  this  time,  my  lass,"' 
said  Clem.     "  Whaur  were  ye?  " 

"  O,  just  taking  a  dander  by  myser,"  said 
Kirstie. 

And  the  talk  continued  on  the  subject  of  the 
American  war,  without  further  reference  to  the 
truant  who  stood  by  them  in  the  covert  of  the  dusk, 
thrilling  with  happiness  and  the  sense  of  guilt. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     125 

The  signal  was  given,  and  the  brothers  began  to 
go  in  one  after  another,  amid  the  jostle  and  throng 
of  Hob's  children. 

Only  Dandie,  waiting  till  the  last,  caught  Kirstie 
by  the  arm.  "When  did  ye  begin  to  dander  in 
pink  hosen,  Mistress  Elliott?  "  he  whispered  slyly. 

She  looked  down ;  she  was  one  blush.  "  I  maun 
have  forgotten  to  change  them/'  said  she;  and 
went  in  to  prayers  in  her  turn  with  a  troubled 
mind,  between  anxiety  as  to  whether  Dand  should 
have  observed  her  yellow  stockings  at  church,  and 
should  thus  detect  her  in  a  palpable  falsehood, 
and  shame  that  she  had  already  made  good  his 
prophecy. 

She  remembered  the  words  of  it,  how  it  was 
to  be  when  she  had  gotten  a  jo,  and  that  that  would 
be  for  good  and  evil.  "  Will  I  have  gotten  my  jo 
now  ?  "  she  thought  with  a  secret  rapture. 

And  all  through  prayers,  where  it  was  her  prin- 
cipal business  to  conceal  the  pink  stockings  from 
the  eyes  of  the  indifferent  Mrs.  Hob  —  and  all 
through  supper,  as  she  made  a  feint  of  eating, 
and  sat  at  the  table  radiant  and  constrained  — 
and  again  when  she  had  left  them  and  come  into 
her  chamber,  and  was  alone  with  her  sleeping 
niece,  and  could  at  last  lay  aside  the  armour  of 
society  —  the  same  words  sounded  within  her,  the 
same  profound  note  of  happiness,  of  a  world  all 
changed  and  renewed,  of  a  day  that  had  been 
passed  in  Paradise,  and  of  a  night  that  was  to  be 
heaven  opened.  All  night  she  seemed  to  be  con- 
veyed smoothly  upon  a  shallow  stream  of  sleep 


126     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

and  waking,  and  through  the  bowers  of  Beulah; 
all  night  she  cherished  to  her  heart  that  exquisite 
hope;  and  if,  towards  morning,  she  forgot  it 
awhile  in  a  more  profound  unconsciousness,  it  was 
to  catch  again  the  rainbow  thought  with  her  first 
moment  of  awaking. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ENTER   MEPHISTOPHELES 

TWO  days  later  a  gig  from  Crossmichael 
deposited  Frank  Innes  at  the  doors  of 
Hermiston.  Once  in  a  way,  during  the 
past  winter,  Archie,  in  some  acute  phase  of  bore- 
dom, had  written  him  a  letter.  It  had  contained 
something  in  the  nature  of  an  invitation,  or  a  refer- 
ence to  an  invitation  —  precisely  what,  neither  of 
them  now  remembered.  When  Innes  had  received 
it,  there  had  been  nothing  further  from  his  mind 
than  to  bury  himself  in  the  moors  with  Archie; 
but  not  even  the  most  acute  political  heads  are 
guided  through  the  steps  of  life  with  unerring 
directness.  That  would  require  a  gift  of  prophecy 
which  has  been  denied  to  man.  For  instance,  who 
could  have  imagined  that,  not  a  month  after  he 
had  received  the  letter,  and  turned  it  into  mockery, 
and  put  off  answering  it,  and  in  the  end  lost  it, 
misfortunes  of  a  gloomy  cast  should  begin  to 
thicken  over  Frank's  career?  His  case  may  be 
briefly  stated.  His  father,  a  small  Morayshire 
laird  with  a  large  family,  became  recalcitrant  and 
cut  off  the  supplies ;  he  had  fitted  himself  out  with 
the  beginnings  of  quite  a  good  law  library,  which, 
upon  some  sudden  losses  on  the  turf,  he  had  been 


128     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

obliged  to  sell  before  they  were  paid  for;  and  his 
bookseller,  hearing  some  rumour  of  the  event,  took 
out  a  warrant  for  his  arrest.  Innes  had  early  word 
of  it,  and  was  able  to  take  precautions.  In  this 
immediate  welter  of  his  affairs,  with  an  unpleasant 
charge  hanging  over  him,  he  had  judged  it  the  part 
of  prudence  to  be  off  instantly,  had  written  a  fer- 
vid letter  to  his  father  at  Inverauld,  and  put  him- 
self in  the  coach  for  Crossmichael.  Any  port  in  a 
storm !  He  was  manfully  turning  his  back  on  the 
Parliament  House  and  its  gay  babble,  on  porter 
and  oysters,  the  racecourse  and  the  ring ;  and  man- 
fully prepared,  until  these  clouds  should  have 
blown  by,  to  share  a  living  grave  with  Archie 
Weir  at  Hermiston. 

To  do  him  justice,  he  was  no  less  surprised  to 
be  going  than  Archie  was  to  see  him  come;  and 
he  carried  off  his  wonder  with  an  infinitely  better 
grace. 

"  Well,  here  lam!"  said  he,  as  he  alighted. 
"  Py lades  has  come  to  Orestes  at  last.  By  the  way, 
did  you  get  my  answer?  No?  How  very  pro- 
voking! Well,  here  I  am  to  answer  for  myself, 
and  that 's  better  still.'* 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you,  of  course,"  said 
Archie.  "  I  make  you  heartily  welcome,  of  course. 
But  you  surely  have  not  come  to  stay,  with  the 
courts  still  sitting ;   is  that  not  most  unwise  ?  " 

"  Damn  the  courts !  "  says  Frank.  "  What  are 
the  courts  to  friendship  and  a  little  fishing  ?  " 

And  so  it  was  agreed  that  he  was  to  stay,  with 
no  term  to  the  visit  but  the  term  which  he  had 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     129 

privily  set  to  it  himself  —  the  day,  namely,  when 
his  father  should  have  come  down  with  the  dust, 
and  he  should  be  able  to  pacify  the  bookseller. 
On  such  vague  conditions  there  began  for  these 
two  young  men  (who  were  not  even  friends)  a 
life  of  great  familiarity  and,  as  the  days  grew  on, 
less  and  less  intimacy.  They  were  together  at  meal 
times,  together  o'  nights  when  the  hour  had  come 
for  whisky  toddy;  but  it  might  have  been  noticed 
(had  there  been  any  one  to  pay  heed)  that  they 
were  rarely  so  much  together  by  day.  Archie  had 
Hermiston  to  attend  to,  multifarious  activities  in 
the  hills,  in  which  he  did  not  require,  and  had  even 
refused,  Frank's  escort.  He  would  be  off  some- 
times in  the  morning  and  leave  only  a  note  on  the 
breakfast  table  to  announce  the  fact;  and  some- 
times, with  no  notice  at  all,  he  would  not  return 
for  dinner  until  the  hour  was  long  past.  Innes 
groaned  under  these  desertions;  it  required  all  his 
philosophy  to  sit  down  to  a  solitary  breakfast  with 
composure,  and  all  his  unaffected  good-nature  to 
be  able  to  greet  Archie  with  friendliness  on  the 
more  rare  occasions  when  he  came  home  late  for 
dinner. 

"  I  wonder  what  on  earth  he  finds  to  do,  Mrs. 
Elliott  ?"  said  he  one  morning,  after  he  had  just 
read  the  hasty  billet  and  sat  down  to  table. 

1?  I  suppose  it  will  be  business,  sir,"  replied  the 
housekeeper  drily,  measuring  his  distance  off  to 
him  by  an  indicated  curtsey. 

"  But  I  can't  imagine  what  business !  V  he 
reiterated. 


130    WEIR    OF    HERMIS10N 

"  I  suppose  it  will  be  his  business,"  retorted  the 
austere  Kirstie. 

He  turned  to  her  with  that  happy  brightness 
that  made  the  charm  of  his  disposition,  and  broke 
into  a  peal  of  healthy  and  natural  laughter. 

"Well  played,  Mrs.  Elliott !  "  he  cried,  and  the 
housekeeper's  face  relaxed  into  the  shadow  of  an 
iron  smile.  "  Well  played  indeed !  "  said  he.  "  But 
you  must  not  be  making  a  stranger  of  me  like  that. 
Why,  Archie  and  I  were  at  the  High  School  to- 
gether, and  we  've  been  to  college  together,  and 
we  were  going  to  the  Bar  together,  when  —  you 
know !  Dear,  dear  me !  what  a  pity  that  was !  A 
life  spoiled,  a  fine  young  fellow  as  good  as  buried 
here  in  the  wilderness  with  rustics;  and  all  for 
what?  A  frolic,  silly,  if  you  like,  but  no  more. 
God,  how  good  your  scones  are,  Mrs.  Elliott ! " 

"  They  're  no  mines,  it  was  the  lassie  made 
them,"  said  Kirstie ;  "  and,  saving  your  presence, 
there  's  little  sense  in  taking  the  Lord's  name  in 
vain  about  idle  vivers  that  you  fill  your  kyte  wi\" 

"  I  dare  say  you  're  perfectly  right,  ma'am," 
quoth  the  imperturbable  Frank.  "  But,  as  I  was 
saying,  this  is  a  pitiable  business,  this  about  poor 
Archie ;  and  you  and  I  might  do  worse  than  put  our 
heads  together,  like  a  couple  of  sensible  people, 
and  bring  it  to  an  end.  Let  me  tell  you,  ma'am, 
that  Archie  is  really  quite  a  promising  young  man, 
and  in  my  opinion  he  would  do  well  at  the  Bar. 
As  for  his  father,  no  one  can  deny  his  ability,  and 
I  don't  fancy  any  one  would  care  to  deny  that  he 
has  the  deil's  own  temper " 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     131 

"  If  you  '11  excuse  me,  Mr.  Innes,  I  think  the  lass 
is  crying  on  me,"  said  Kirstie,  and  flounced  from 
the  room. 

"  The  damned,  cross-grained,  old  broom-stick !  " 
ejaculated  Innes. 

In  the  meantime,  Kirstie  had  escaped  into  the 
kitchen,  and  before  her  vassal  gave  vent  to  her 
feelings. 

"  Here,  ettercap !  Ye  '11  have  to  wait  on  yon 
Innes !  I  canna  haud  myself  in.  *  Puir  Erchie  ' ! 
I  'd  (  puir  Erchie  '  him,  if  I  had  my  way !  And 
Hermiston  with  the  deil's  ain  temper!  God,  let 
him  take  Hermiston's  scones  out  of  his  mouth 
first.  There  's  no  a  hair  on  ayther  o'  the  Weirs 
that  hasna  mair  spunk  and  dirdum  to  it  than  what 
he  has  in  his  hale  dwaibly  body!  Settin'  up  his 
snash  to  me !  Let  him  gang  to  the  black  toon  where 
he's  mebbe  wantit  —  birling  in  a  curricle  —  wi' 
pimatum  on  his  heid  —  making  a  mess  o'  himseF 
wi'  nesty  hizzies  —  a  fair  disgrace !  "  It  was 
impossible  to  hear  without  admiration  Kirstie's 
graduated  disgust,  as  she  brought  forth,  one  after 
another,  these  somewhat  baseless  charges.  Then 
she  remembered  her  immediate  purpose,  and  turned 
again  on  her  fascinated  auditor.  "  Do  ye  no  hear 
me,  tawpie?  Do  ye  no  hear  what  I  'm  tellin'  ye? 
Will  I  have  to  shoo  ye  in  to  him?  If  I  come  to 
attend  to  ye,  mistress ! "  And  the  maid  fled  the 
kitchen,  which  had  become  practically  dangerous, 
to  attend  on  Innes'  wants  in  the  front  parlour. 

Tantane  ircef  Has  the  reader  perceived  the 
reason  ?    Since  Frank's  coming  there  were  no  more 


132     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

hours  of  gossip  over  the  supper  tray !  All  his  blan- 
dishments were  in  vain;  he  had  started  handi- 
capped on  the  race  for  Mrs.  Elliott's  favour. 

But  it  was  a  strange  thing  how  misfortune 
dogged  him  in  his  efforts  to  be  genial.  I  must 
guard  the  reader  against  accepting  Kirstie's  epi- 
thets as  evidence ;  she  was  more  concerned  for  their 
vigour  than  for  their  accuracy.  Dwaibly,  for  in- 
stance ;  nothing  could  be  more  calumnious.  Frank 
was  the  very  picture  of  good  looks,  good-humour, 
and  manly  youth.  He  had  bright  eyes  with  a 
sparkle  and  a  dance  to  them,  curly  hair,  a  charm- 
ing smile,  brilliant  teeth,  an  admirable  carriage  of 
the  head,  the  look  of  a  gentleman,  the  address  of 
one  accustomed  to  please  at  first  sight  and  to  im- 
prove the  impression.  And  with  all  these  advan- 
tages, he  failed  with  every  one  about  Hermiston; 
with  the  silent  shepherd,  with  the  obsequious 
grieve,  with  the  groom  who  was  also  the  plough- 
man, with  the  gardener  and  the  gardener's  sister 
—  a  pious,  down-hearted  woman  with  a  shawl  over 
her  ears —  he  failed  equally  and  flatly.  They  did 
not  like  him,  and  they  showed  it.  The  little  maid, 
indeed,  was  an  exception;  she  admired  him  de- 
voutly, probably  dreamed  of  him  in  her  private 
hours ;  but  she  was  accustomed  to  play  the  part  of 
silent  auditor  to  Kirstie's  tirades  and  silent  recipi- 
ent of  Kirstie's  buffets,  and  she  had  learned  not 
Oiily  to  be  a  very  capable  girl  of  her  years,  but  a 
very  secret  and  prudent  one  besides.  Frank  was 
thus  conscious  that  he  had  one  ally  and  sympa- 
thiser in  the  midst  of  that  general  union  of  disfavour. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     133 

that  surrounded,  watched,  and  waited  on  him  in 
the  house  of  Hermiston ;  but  he  had  little  comfort 
or  society  from  that  alliance,  and  the  demure  little 
maid  (twelve  on  her  last  birthday)  preserved  her 
own  counsel,  and  tripped  on  his  service,  brisk, 
dumbly  responsive,  but  inexorably  unconversa- 
tional.  For  the  others,  they  were  beyond  hope  and 
beyond  endurance.  Never  had  a  young  Apollo 
been  cast  among  such  rustic  barbarians.  But  per- 
haps the  cause  of  his  ill-success  lay  in  one  trait 
which  was  habitual  and  unconscious  with  him,  yet 
diagnostic  of  the  man.  It  was  his  practice  to  ap- 
proach any  one  person  at  the  expense  of  some  one 
else.  He  offered  you  an  alliance  against  the  some 
one  else;  he  flattered  you  by  slighting  him;  you 
were  drawn  into  a  small  intrigue  against  him 
before  you  knew  how.  Wonderful  are  the  virtues 
of  this  process  generally ;  but  Frank's  mistake  was 
in  the  choice  of  the  some  one  else.  He  was  not 
politic  in  that ;  he  listened  to  the  voice  of  irritation. 
Archie  had  offended  him  at  first  by  what  he  had 
felt  to  be  rather  a  dry  reception;  had  offended 
him  since  by  his  frequent  absences.  He  was 
besides  the  one  figure  continually  present  in  Frank's 
eye;  and  it  was  to  his  immediate  dependents  that 
Frank  could  offer  the  snare  of  his  sympathy.  Now 
the  truth  is  that  the  Weirs,  father  and  son,  were 
surrounded  by  a  posse  of  strenuous  loyalists.  Of 
my  lord  they  were  vastly  proud.  It  was  a  distinc- 
tion in  itself  to  be  one  of  the  vassals  of  the  "  Hang- 
ing Judge,"  and  his  gross,  formidable  joviality  was 
far  from  unpopular  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his 


134     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

home.  For  Archie  they  had,  one  and  all,  a  sensi- 
tive affection  and  respect  which  recoiled  from  a 
word  of  belittlement. 

Nor  was  Frank  more  successful  when  he  went 
farther  afield.  To  the  Four  Black  Brothers,  for 
instance,  he  was  antipathetic  in  the  highest  degree. 
Hob  thought  him  too  light,  Gib  too  profane. 
Clem,  who  saw  him  but  for  a  day  or  two  before  he 
went  to  Glasgow,  wanted  to  know  what  the  fule's 
business  was,  and  whether  he  meant  to  stay  here  all 
session  time !  "  Yon  's  a  drone,"  he  pronounced. 
As  for  Dand,  it  will  be  enough  to  describe  their 
first  meeting,  when  Frank  had  been  whipping  a 
river  and  the  rustic  celebrity  chanced  to  come  along 
the  path. 

"  I  'm  told  you  are  quite  a  poet,"  Frank  had  said. 

"Wha  teirt  ye  that,  mannie?"  had  been  the 
unconciliating  answer. 

"  O,  everybody,"  says  Frank. 

"  God!  Here  'a  fame!  "  said  the  sardonic  poet, 
and  he  had  passed  on  his  way. 

Come  to  think  of  it,  we  have  here  perhaps  a  truer 
explanation  of  Frank's  failures.  Had  he  met  Mr. 
Sheriff  Scott  he  could  have  turned  a  neater  com- 
pliment, because  Mr.  Scott  would  have  been  a 
friend  worth  making.  Dand,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
did  not  value  sixpence,  and  he  showed  it  even  while 
he  tried  to  flatter.  ^^Condescension  is  an  excellent 
thing,  but  it  is  strange  how  one-sided  the  pleasure 
of  it  is!  He  who  goes  fishing  among  the  Scots 
peasantry  with  condescension  for  a  bait  will  have 
an  empty  basket  by  evening?7 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     135 

In  proof  of  this  theory  Frank  made  a  great  suc- 
cess of  it  at  the  Crossmichael  Club,  to  which  Archie 
took  him  immediately  on  his  arrival;  his  own  last 
appearance  on  that  scene  of  gaiety.  Frank  was 
made  welcome  there  at  once,  continued  to  go  reg- 
ularly, and  had  attended  a  meeting  (as  the  mem- 
bers ever  after  loved  to  tell)  on  the  evening  before 
his  death.  Young  Hay  and  young  Pringle  appeared 
again.  There  was  another  supper  at  Windielaws, 
another  dinner  at  Driffel ;  and  it  resulted  in  Frank 
being  taken  to  the  bosom  of  the  county  people  as 
unreservedly  as  he  had  been  repudiated  by  the 
country  folk.  He  occupied  Hermiston  after  the 
manner  of  an  invader  in  a  conquered  capital.  He 
was  perpetually  issuing  from  it,  as  from  a  base,  to 
toddy  parties,  fishing  parties,  and  dinner  parties, 
to  which  Archie  was  not  invited,  or  to  which  Archie 
would  not  go.  It  was  now  that  the  name  of  The 
Recluse  became  general  for  the  young  man.  Some 
say  that  Innes  invented  it;  Innes,  at  least,  spread 
it  abroad. 

"  How  's  all  with  your  Recluse  to-day  ?  "  people 
would  ask. 

"  O,  reclusing  away ! "  Innes  would  declare, 
with  his  bright  air  of  saying  something  witty ;  and 
immediately  interrupt  the  general  laughter  which 
he  had  provoked  much  more  by  his  air  than  his 
words,  "  Mind  you,  it 's  all  very  well  laughing,  but 
I  'm  not  very  well  pleased.  Poor  Archie  is  a  good 
fellow,  an  excellent  fellow,  a  fellow  I  always  liked. 
I  think  it  small  of  him  to  take  his  little  disgrace  so 
hard  and  shut  himself  up.    '  Grant  that  it  is  a  ridicu- 


136     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

lous  story,  painfully  ridiculous,'  I  keep  telling  him. 
'  Be  a  man !  Live  it  down,  man !  >  But  not  he. 
Of  course  it's  just  solitude,  and  shame,  and  all 
that.  But  I  confess  I  'm  beginning  to  fear  the 
result.  It  would  be  all  the  pities  in  the  world  if  a 
really  promising  fellow  like  Weir  was  to  end  ill. 
I  'm  seriously  tempted  to  write  to  Lord  Hermiston, 
and  put  it  plainly  to  him." 

"  I  would  if  I  were  you,"  some  of  his  auditors 
would  say,  shaking  the  head,  sitting  bewildered  and 
confused  at  this  new  view  of  the  matter,  so  deftly 
indicated  by  a  single  word.  "  A  capital  idea ! " 
they  would  add,  and  wonder  at  the  aplomb  and 
position  of  this  young  man,  who  talked  as  a  matter 
of  course  of  writing  to  Hermiston  and  correcting 
him  upon  his  private  affairs. 

And  Frank  would  proceed,  sweetly  confidential : 
"  I  '11  give  you  an  idea,  now.  He 's  actually  sore 
about  the  way  that  I  'm  received  and  he  's  left  out 
in  the  county  —  actually  jealous  and  sore.  I've 
rallied  him  and  I  've  reasoned  with  him,  told  him 
that  every  one  was  most  kindly  inclined  towards 
him,  told  him  even  that  I  was  received  merely 
because  I  was  his  guest.  But  it 's  no  use.  He  will 
neither  accept  the  invitations  he  gets,  nor  stop 
brooding  about  the  ones  where  he 's  left  out. 
What  I  'm  afraid  of  is  that  the  wound  's  ulcerating. 
He  had  always  one  of  those  dark,  secret,  angry 
natures  —  a  little  underhand  and  plenty  of  bile  — 
you  know  the  sort.  He  must  have  inherited  it  from 
the  Weirs,  whom  I  suspect  to  have  been  a  worthy 
family  of  weavers  somewhere ;    what 's  the  cant 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     137 

phrase  ?  —  sedentary  occupation.  It  's  precisely 
the  kind  of  character  to  go  wrong  in  a  false  posi- 
tion like  what  his  father  's  made  for  him,  or  he  's 
making  for  himself,  whichever  you  like  to  call  it. 
And  for  my  part,  I  think  it  a  disgrace,"  Frank 
would  say  generously. 

Presently  the  sorrow  and  anxiety  of  this  disin- 
terested friend  took  shape.  He  began  in  private, 
in  conversations  of  two,  to  talk  vaguely  of  bad 
habits  and  low  habits.  "  I  must  say  I  'm  afraid  he  's 
going  wrong  altogether,"  he  would  say.  "  I  '11  tell 
you  plainly,  and  between  ourselves,  I  scarcely  like 
to  stay  there  any  longer ;  only,  man,  I  'm  positively 
afraid  to  leave  him  alone.  You  '11  see,  I  shall  be 
blamed  for  it  later  on.  I  'm  staying  at  a  great 
sacrifice.  I  'm  hindering  my  chances  at  the  Bar, 
and  I  can't  blind  my  eyes  to  it.  And  what  I  'm 
afraid  of  is  that  I  'm  going  to  get  kicked  for  it  all 
round  before  all 's  done.  You  see,  nobody  believes 
in  friendship  nowadays." 

"  Well,  Innes,"  his  interlocutor  would  reply, 
"  it 's  very  good  of  you,  I  must  say  that.  If  there  's 
any  blame  going  you  '11  always  be  sure  of  my  good 
word,  for  one  thing." 

"  Well,"  Frank  would  continue,  "  candidly,  I 
don't  say  it 's  pleasant.  He  has  a  very  rough  way 
with  him;  his  father's  son,  you  know.  I  don't 
say  he 's  rude  —  of  course,  I  could  n't  be  expected 
to  stand  that  —  but  he  steers  very  near  the  wind. 
No,  it 's  not  pleasant ;  but  I  tell  ye,  man,  in  con- 
science I  don't  think  it  would  be  fair  to  leave  him. 
Mind  you,  I  don't  say  there's  anything  actually 


138     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

wrong.  What  I  say  is  that  I  don't  like  the  looks 
of  it,  man ! "  and  he  would  press  the  arm  of  his 
momentary  confidant. 

In  the  early  stages  I  am  persuaded  there  was  no 
malice.  He  talked  but  for  the  pleasure  of  airing 
himself.  He  was  essentially  glib,  as  becomes  the 
young  advocate,  and  essentially  careless  of  the 
truth,  which  is  the  mark  of  the  young  ass ;  and  so 
he  talked  at  random.  There  was  no  particular 
bias,  but  that  one  which  is  indigenous  and  univer- 
sal, to  flatter  himself  and  to  please  and  interest  the 
present  friend.  And  by  thus  milling  air  out  of 
his  mouth,  he  had  presently  built  up  a  presentation 
of  Archie  which  was  known  and  talked  of  in  all 
corners  of  the  county.  Wherever  there  was  a  resi- 
dential house  and  a  walled  garden,  wherever  there 
was  a  dwarfish  castle  and  a  park,  wherever  a  quad- 
ruple cottage  by  the  ruins  of  a  peel-tower  showed 
an  old  family  going  down,  and  wherever  a  hand- 
some villa  with  a  carriage  approach  and  a  shrubbery 
marked  the  coming  up  of  a  new  one  —  probably 
on  the  wheels  of  machinery  —  Archie  began  to  be 
regarded  in  the  light  of  a  dark,  perhaps  a  vicious 
mystery,  and  the  future  developments  of  his 
career  to  be  looked  for  with  uneasiness  and  confi- 
dential whispering.  He  had  done  something  dis- 
graceful, my  dear.  What,  was  not  precisely 
known,  and  that  good  kind  young  man,  Mr.  Innes, 
did  his  best  to  make  light  of  it.  But  there  it 
was.  And  Mr.  Innes  was  very  anxious  about  him 
now;  he  was  really  uneasy,  my  dear;  he  was 
positively  wrecking  his  own  prospects  because  he 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     139 

dared  not  leave  him  alone.  How  wholly  we  all 
lie  at  the  mercy  of  a  single  prater,  not  needfully 
with  any  malign  purpose!  And  if  a  man  but 
talks  of  himself  in  the  right  spirit,  refers  to 
his  virtuous  actions  by  the  way,  and  never 
applies  to  them  the  name  of  virtue,  how  easily 
his  evidence  is  accepted  in  the  court  of  public 
opinion ! 

All  this  while,  however,  there  was  a  more  poi- 
sonous ferment  at  work  between  the  two  lads,  which 
came  late  indeed  to  the  surface,  but  had  modified 
and  magnified  their  dissensions  from  the  first.  To 
an  idle,  shallow,  easy-going  customer  like  Frank, 
the  smell  of  a  mystery  was  attractive.  It  gave  his 
mind  something  to  play  with,  like  a  new  toy  to  a 
child;  and  it  took  him  on  the  weak  side,  for  like 
many  young  men  coming  to  the  Bar,  and  before 
they  have  been  tried  and  found  wanting,  he  flat- 
tered himself  he  was  a  fellow  of  unusual  quickness 
and  penetration.  They  knew  nothing  of  Sherlock 
Holmes  in  these  days,  but  there  was  a  good  deal 
said  of  Talleyrand.  And  if  you  could  have  caught 
Frank  off  his  guard,  he  would  have  confessed  with 
a  smirk,  that,  if  he  resembled  any  one,  it  was  the 
Marquis  de  Talleyrand-Perigord.  It  was  on  the 
occasion  of  Archie's  first  absence  that  this  interest 
took  root.  It  was  vastly  deepened  when  Kirstie 
resented  his  curiosity  at  breakfast,  and  that  same 
afternoon  there  occurred  another  scene  which 
clinched  the  business.  He  was  fishing  Swingle- 
burn,  Archie  accompanying  him,  when  the  latter 
looked  at  his  watch. 


i4o    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

"  Well,  good-bye/'  said  he.  "  I  have  something 
to  do.     See  you  at  dinner." 

"  Don't  be  in  such  a  hurry,"  cries  Frank.  "  Hold 
on  till  I  get  my  rod  up.  I  '11  go  with  you ;  I  'm 
sick  of  flogging  this  ditch." 

And  he  began  to  reel  up  his  line. 

Archie  stood  speechless.  He  took  a  long  while 
to  recover  his  wits  under  this  direct  attack;  but 
by  the  time  he  was  ready  with  his  answer,  and  the 
angle  was  almost  packed  up,  he  had  become  com- 
pletely Weir,  and  the  hanging  face  gloomed  on  his 
young  shoulders.  He  spoke  with  a  laboured  com- 
posure, a  laboured  kindness  even ;  but  a  child  could 
see  that  his  mind  was  made  up. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Innes ;  I  don't  want  to  be 
disagreeable,  but  let  us  understand  one  another  from 
the  beginning.  When  I  want  your  company,  I'll 
let  you  know." 

"  Oh !  "  cries  Frank,  "  you  don't  want  my  com- 
pany, don't  you  ?  " 

"  Apparently  not  just  now,"  replied  Archie.  "  I 
even  indicated  to  you  when  I  did,  if  you  '11  remem- 
ber—  and  that  was  at  dinner.  If  we  two  fel- 
lows are  to  live  together  pleasantly  —  and  I  see 
no  reason  why  we  should  not  —  it  can  only  be 
by  respecting  each  other's  privacy.  If  we  begin 
intruding " 

"  Oh,  come !  I  '11  take  this  at  no  man's  hands. 
Is  this  the  way  you  treat  a  guest  and  an  old 
friend  ?  "  cried  Innes. 

"Just  go  home  and  think  over  what  I  said  by 
yourself,"  continued  Archie,  "  whether  it 's  reason- 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     141 

able,  or  whether  it 's  really  offensive  or  not ;  and 
let 's  meet  at  dinner  as  though  nothing  had  hap- 
pened. I  '11  put  it  this  way,  if  you  like  —  that  I 
know  my  own  character,  that  I  'm  looking  for- 
ward (with  great  pleasure,  I  assure  you)  to  a  long 
visit  from  you,  and  that  I  'm  taking  precautions  at 
the  first.  I  see  the  thing  that  we  —  that  I,  if  you 
like  —  might  fall  out  upon,  and  I  step  in  and  obsto 
principiis.  I  wager  you  five  pounds  you  '11  end  by 
seeing  that  I  mean  friendliness,  and  I  assure  you, 
Francie,  I  do,"  he  added,  relenting. 

Bursting  with  anger,  but  incapable  of  speech, 
Innes  shouldered  his  rod,  made  a  gesture  of  fare- 
well, and  strode  off  down  the  burnside.  Archie 
watched  him  go  without  moving.  He  was  sorry, 
but  quite  unashamed.  He  hated  to  be  inhospitable, 
but  in  one  thing  he  was  his  father's  son.  He 
had  a  strong  sense  that  his  house  was  his  own  and 
no  man  else's;  and  to  lie  at  a  guest's  mercy  was 
what  he  refused.  He  hated  to  seem  harsh.  But 
that  was  Frank's  look-out.  If  Frank  had  been 
commonly  discreet,  he  would  have  been  decently 
courteous.  And  there  was  another  consideration. 
The  secret  he  was  protecting  was  not  his  own 
merely ;  it  was  hers ;  it  belonged  to  that  inexpres- 
sible she  who  was  fast  taking  possession  of  his  soul, 
and  whom  he  would  soon  have  defended  at  the 
cost  of  burning  cities.  By  the  time  he  had  watched 
Frank  as  far  as  the  Swingleburnfoot,  appearing 
and  disappearing  in  the  tarnished  heather,  still 
stalking  at  a  fierce  gait  but  already  dwindled  in  the 
distance  into  less  than  the  smallness  of  Lilliput,  he 


14*     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

could  afford  to  smile  at  the  occurrence.  Either 
Frank  would  go,  and  that  would  be  a  relief  —  or 
he  would  continue  to  stay,  and  his  host  must  con- 
tinue to  endure  him.  And  Archie  was  now  free 
—  by  devious  paths,  behind  hillocks  and  in  the 
hollow  of  burns  —  to  make  for  the  trysting-place 
where  Kirstie,  cried  about  by  the  curlew  and  the 
plover,  waited  and  burned  for  his  coming  by  the 
Covenanter's  stone. 

Innes  went  off  down-hill  in  a  passion  of  resent- 
ment, easy  to  be  understood,  but  which  yielded  pro- 
gressively to  the  needs  of  his  situation.  He  cursed 
Archie  for  a  cold-hearted,  unfriendly,  rude  dog ;  and 
himself  still  more  passionately  for  a  fool  in  hav- 
ing come  to  Hermiston  when  he  might  have  sought 
refuge  in  almost  any  other  house  in  Scotland, 
but  the  step  once  taken  was  practically  irretriev- 
able. He  had  no  more  ready  money  to  go  any- 
where else;  he  would  have  to  borrow  from  Archie 
the  next  club-night;  and  ill  as  he  thought  of  his 
host's  manners,  he  was  sure  of  his  practical  gener- 
osity. Frank's  resemblance  to  Talleyrand  strikes 
me  as  imaginary ;  but  at  least  not  Talleyrand  him- 
self could  have  more  obediently  taken  his  lesson 
from  the  facts.  He  met  Archie  at  dinner  without 
resentment,  almost  with  cordiality.  You  must  take 
your  friends  as  you  find  them,  he  would  have  said. 
Archie  could  n't  help  being  his  father's  son,  or  his 
grandfather's,  the  hypothetical  weaver's,  grandson. 
The  son  of  a  hunks,  he  was  still  a  hunks  at  heart, 
incapable  of  true  generosity  and  consideration ;  but 
he  had  other  qualities  with  which   Frank  could 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     143 

divert  himself  in  the  meanwhile,  and  to  enjoy 
which  it  was  necessary  that  Frank  should  keep  his 
temper. 

So  excellently  was  it  controlled  that  he  awoke 
next  morning  with  his  head  full  of  a  different, 
though  a  cognate  subject.  What  was  Archie's 
little  game?  Why  did  he  shun  Frank's  company? 
What  was  he  keeping  secret?  Was  he  keeping 
tryst  with  somebody,  and  was  it  a  woman?  It 
would  be  a  good  joke  and  a  fair  revenge  to  dis- 
cover. To  that  task  he  set  himself  with  a  great 
deal  of  patience,  which  might  have  surprised  his 
friends,  for  he  had  been  always  credited  not  with 
patience  so  much  as  brilliancy;  and  little  by  little, 
from  one  point  to  another,  he  at  last  succeeded  in 
piecing  out  the  situation.  First  he  remarked  that, 
although  Archie  set  out  in  all  the  directions  of  the 
compass,  he  always  came  home  again  from  some 
point  between  the  south  and  west.  From  the  study 
of  a  map,  and  in  consideration  of  the  great  expanse 
of  untenanted  moorland  running  in  that  direction 
towards  the  sources  of  the  Clyde,  he  laid  his  fin- 
ger on  Cauldstaneslap  and  two  other  neighbour- 
ing farms,  Kingsmuirs  and  Polintarf.  But  it  was 
difficult  to  advance  farther.  With  his  rod  for  a 
pretext,  he  vainly  visited  each  of  them  in  turn; 
nothing  was  to  be  seen  suspicious  about  this  trinity 
of  moorland  settlements.  He  would  have  tried  to 
follow  Archie,  had  it  been  the  least  possible,  but 
the  nature  of  the  land  precluded  the  idea.  He  did 
the  next  best,  ensconced  himself  in  a  quiet  corner, 
and  pursued  his  movements  with  a  telescope.     It 


i44     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

was  equally  in  vain,  and  he  soon  wearied  of  his 
futile  vigilance,  left  the  telescope  at  home,  and  had 
almost  given  the  matter  up  in  despair,  when,  on  the 
twenty-seventh  day  of  his  visit,  he  was  suddenly 
confronted  with  the  person  whom  he  sought.  The 
first  Sunday  Kirstie  had  managed  to  stay  away 
from  kirk  on  some  pretext  of  indisposition,  which 
was  more  truly  modesty ;  the  pleasure  of  beholding 
Archie  seeming  too  sacred,  too  vivid  for  that  public 
place.  On  the  two  following  Frank  had  himself 
been  absent  on  some  of  his  excursions  among  the 
neighbouring  families.  It  was  not  until  the  fourth, 
accordingly,  that  Frank  had  occasion  to  set  eyes  on 
the  enchantress.  With  the  first  look,  all  hesitation 
was  over.  She  came  with  the  Cauldstaneslap  party ; 
then  she  lived  at  Cauldstaneslap.  Here  was 
Archie's  secret,  here  was  the  woman,  and  more 
than  that  —  though  I  have  need  here  of  every 
manageable  attenuation  of  language  —  with  the 
first  look,  he  had  already  entered  himself  as  rival. 
It  was  a  good  deal  in  pique,  it  was  a  little  in  revenge, 
it  was  much  in  genuine  admiration :  the  devil  may 
decide  the  proportions;  I  cannot,  and  it  is  very 
likely  that  Frank  could  not. 

"  Mighty  attractive  milkmaid,"  he  observed,  on 
the  way  home. 

"Who?"  said  Archie. 

"  O,  the  girl  you  're  looking  at  —  are  n't  you  ? 
Forward  there  on  the  road.  She  came  attended  by 
the  rustic  bard ;  presumably,  therefore,  belongs  to 
his  exalted  family.  The  single  objection!  for  the 
Four  Black  Brothers  are  awkward  customers.     If 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     145 

anything  were  to  go  wrong,  Gib  would  gibber,  and 
Clem  would  prove  inclement;  and  Dand  fly  in 
danders,  and  Hob  blow  up  in  gobbets.  It  would 
be  a  Helliott  of  a  business !  " 

"  Very  humourous,  I  am  sure,"  said  Archie. 

"  Well,  I  am  trying  to  be  so,"  said  Frank. 
"  It 's  none  too  easy  in  this  place,  and  with  your 
solemn  society,  my  dear  fellow.  But  confess  that 
the  milkmaid  has  found  favour  in  your  eyes  or 
resign  all  claim  to  be  a  man  of  taste." 

"  It  is  no  matter,"  returned  Archie. 

But  the  other  continued  to  look  at  him,  steadily 
and  quizzically,  and  his  colour  slowly  rose  and 
deepened  under  the  glance,  until  not  impudence 
itself  could  have  denied  that  he  was  blushing. 
And  at  this  Archie  lost  some  of  his  control.  He 
changed  his  stick  from  one  hand  to  the  other, 
and  —  "  O,  for  God's  sake,  don't  be  an  ass ! "  he 
cried. 

"Ass?  That's  the  retort  delicate  without 
doubt,"  says  Frank.  "  Beware  of  the  homespun 
brothers,  dear.  If  they  come  into  the  dance,  you  '11 
see  who  's  an  ass.  Think  now,  if  they  only  applied 
(say)  a  quarter  as  much  talent  as  I  have  applied 
to  the  question  of  what  Mr.  Archie  does  with  his 
evening  hours,  and  why  he  is  so  unaffectedly  nasty 
when  the  subject 's  touched  on " 

"  You  are  touching  on  it  now,"  interrupted 
Archie  with  a  wince. 

"  Thank  you.  That  was  all  I  wanted,  an  articu- 
late confession,"  said  Frank. 

"  I  beg  to  remind  you "  began  Archie. 

10 


146     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

But  he  was  interrupted  in  turn.  "  My  dear  fel- 
low, don't.  It 's  quite  needless.  The  subject 's 
dead  and  buried.' ' 

And  Frank  began  to  talk  hastily  on  other  matters, 
an  art  in  which  he  was  an  adept,  for  it  was  his  gift 
to  be  fluent  on  anything  or  nothing.  But  although 
Archie  had  the  grace  or  the  timidity  to  suffer  him 
to  rattle  on,  he  was  by  no  means  done  with  the 
subject.  When  he  came  home  to  dinner,  he  was 
greeted  with  a  sly  demand,  how  things  were  look- 
ing "  Cauldstaneslap  ways."  Frank  took  his  first 
glass  of  port  out  after  dinner  to  the  toast  of  Kirstie, 
and  later  in  the  evening  he  returned  to  the  charge 
again. 

"  I  say,  Weir,  you  '11  excuse  me  for  returning 
again  to  this  affair.  I  've  been  thinking  it  over, 
and  I  wish  to  beg  you  very  seriously  to  be  more 
careful.  It 's  not  a  safe  business.  Not  safe,  my 
boy,"  said  he. 

"What?"  said  Archie. 

"  Well,  it 's  your  own  fault  if  I  must  put  a  name 
on  the  thing ;  but  really,  as  a  friend,  I  cannot  stand 
by  and  see  you  rushing  head  down  into  these 
dangers.  My  dear  boy,"  said  he,  holding  up  a 
warning  cigar,  "  consider  what  is  to  be  the  end 
of  it?" 

"  The  end  of  what  ?  "  —  Archie,  helpless  with 
irritation,  persisted  in  this  dangerous  and  ungra- 
cious guard. 

"  Well,  the  end  of  the  milkmaid ;  or,  to  speak 
more  by  the  card,  the  end  of  Miss  Christina  Elliott 
of  the  Cauldstaneslap  ?  " 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     i47 

"  I  assure  you,"  Archie  broke  out,  "  this  is  all  a 
figment  of  your  imagination.  There  is  nothing  to 
be  said  against  that  young  lady ;  you  have  no  right 
to  introduce  her  name  into  the  conversation." 

"  I  '11  make  a  note  of  it,"  said  Frank.  "  She 
shall  henceforth  be  nameless,  nameless,  nameless, 
Grigalach !  I  make  a  note  besides  of  your  valuable 
testimony  to  her  character.  I  only  want  to  look 
at  this  thing  as  a  man  of  the  world.  Admitted 
she  's  an  angel  —  but,  my  good  fellow,  is  she  a 
lady?" 

This  was  torture  to  Archie.  "  I  beg  your  par- 
don," he  said,  struggling  to  be  composed,  "  but 
because  you  have  wormed  yourself  into  my 
confidence " 

"  O,  come!"  cried  Frank.  "Your  confidence? 
It  was  rosy  but  unconsenting.  Your  confidence, 
indeed?  Now,  look!  This  is  what  I  must  say, 
Weir,  for  it  concerns  your  safety  and  good  char- 
acter, and  therefore  my  honour  as  your  friend. 
You  say  I  wormed  myself  into  your  confidence. 
Wormed  is  good.  But  what  have  I  done?  I 
have  put  two  and  two  together,  just  as  the  parish 
will  be  doing  to-morrow,  and  the  whole  of  Tweed- 
dale  in  two  weeks,  and  the  Black  Brothers  —  well, 
I  won't  put  a  date  on  that ;  it  will  be  a  dark  and 
stormy  morning.  Your  secret,  in  other  words, 
is  poor  Poll's.  And  I  want  to  ask  of  you  as  a 
friend  whether  you  like  the  prospect?  There 
are  two  horns  to  your  dilemma,  and  I  must  say 
for  myself  I  should  look  mighty  ruefully  on 
either.    Do  you  see  yourself  explaining  to  the  Four 


148     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

Black  Brothers?  or  do  you  see  yourself  present- 
ing the  milkmaid  to  papa  as  the  future  lady 
of  Hermiston?  Do  you?  I  tell  you  plainly,  I 
don't." 

Archie  rose.  "  I  will  hear  no  more  of  this,"  he 
said  in  a  trembling  voice. 

But  Frank  again  held  up  his  cigar.  "  Tell  me 
one  thing  first.  Tell  me  if  this  is  not  a  friend's 
part  that  I  am  playing  ?  " 

"  I  believe  you  think  it  so,"  replied  Archie.  "  I 
can  go  as  far  as  that.  I  can  do  so  much  justice 
to  your  motives.  But  I  will  hear  no  more  of  it. 
I  am  going  to  bed." 

"  That 's  right,  Weir,"  said  Frank,  heartily. 
"  Go  to  bed  and  think  over  it ;  and,  I  say,  man, 
don't  forget  your  prayers!  I  don't  often  do  the 
moral  —  don't  go  in  for  that  sort  of  thing  — 
but  when  I  do  there 's  one  thing  sure,  that  I 
mean  it." 

So  Archie  marched  off  to  bed,  and  Frank  sat 
alone  by  the  table  for  another  hour  or  so,  smiling 
to  himself  richly.  There  was  nothing  vindictive 
in  his  nature;  but,  if  revenge  came  in  his  way, 
it  might  as  well  be  good,  and  the  thought  of 
Archie's  pillow  reflections  that  night  was  inde- 
scribably sweet  to  him.  He  felt  a  pleasant  sense 
of  power.  He  looked  down  on  Archie  as  on  a  very 
little  boy  whose  strings  he  pulled  —  as  on  a  horse 
whom  he  had  backed  and  bridled  by  sheer  power 
of  intelligence,  and  whom  he  might  ride  to  glory 
or  the  grave  at  pleasure.  Which  was  it  to  be  ?  He 
lingered  along,  relishing  the  details  of  schemes  that 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     149 

he  was  too  idle  to  pursue.  /  Poor  cork  upon  a  tor- 
rent, he  tasted  that  night  the^sweets  of  omnipotence, 
and  brooded  like  a  deity  over  the  strands  of  that 
intrigue  which  was  to  shatter  him  before  the 
summer  waned. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
A   NOCTURNAL   VISIT 

KIRSTIE  had  many  causes  of  distress. 
More  and  more  as  we  grow  old  —  and 
yet  more  and  more  as  we  grow  old  and 
are  women,  frozen  by  the  fear  of  age  —  we  come 
to  rely  on  the  voice  as  the  single  outlet  of  the 
soul.  Only  thus,  in  the  curtailment  of  our  means, 
can  we  relieve  the  straitened  cry  of  the  passion 
within  us;  only  thus,  in  the  bitter  and  sensitive 
shyness  of  advancing  years,  can  we  maintain  rela- 
tions with  those  vivacious  figures  of  the  young  that 
still  show  before  us,  and  tend  daily  to  become  no 
more  than  the  moving  wall-paper  of  life.  Talk  is 
the  last  link,  the  last  relation.  But  with  the  end  of 
the  conversation,  when  the  voice  stops  and  the 
bright  face  of  the  listener  is  turned  away,  solitude 
falls  again  on  the  bruised  heart.  Kirstie  had  lost 
her  "  cannie  hour  at  e'en  " ;  she  could  no  more 
wander  with  Archie,  a  ghost,  if  you  will,  but  a 
happy  ghost,  in  fields  Elysian.  And  to  her  it  was 
as  if  the  whole  world  had  fallen  silent;  to  him, 
but  an  unremarkable  change  of  amusements.  And 
she  raged  to  know  it.  The  effervescency  of  her 
passionate  and  irritable  nature  rose  within  her  at 
times  to  bursting  point. 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTGN     151 

This  is  the  price  paid  by  age  for  unseasonable 
ardours  of  feeling.  It  must  have  been  so  for  Kir- 
stie  at  any  time  when  the  occasion  chanced;  but 
it  so  fell  out  that  she  was  deprived  of  this  delight 
in  the  hour  when  she  had  most  need  of  it,  when 
she  had  most  to  say,  most  to  ask,  and  when  she 
trembled  to  recognise  her  sovereignty  not  merely 
in  abeyance  but  annulled.  For,  with  the  clairvoy- 
ance of  a  genuine  love,  she  had  pierced  the  mys- 
tery that  had  so  long  embarrassed  Frank.  She 
was  conscious,  even  before  it  was  carried  out,  even 
on  that  Sunday  night  when  it  began,  of  an  invasion 
of  her  rights;  and  a  voice  told  her  the  invader's 
name.  Since  then,  by  arts,  by  accident,  by  small 
things  observed,  and  by  the  general  drift  of 
Archie's  humour,  she  had  passed  beyond  all  pos- 
sibility of  doubt.  With  a  sense  of  justice  that 
Lord  Hermiston  might  have  envied,  she  had  that 
day  in  church  considered  and  admitted  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  younger  Kirstie;  and  with  the  pro- 
found humanity  and  sentimentality  of  her  nature, 
she  had  recognised  the  coming  of  fate.  Not  thus 
would  she  have  chosen.  She  had  seen,  in  imagi- 
nation, Archie  wedded  to  some  tall,  powerful, 
and  rosy  heroine  of  the  golden  locks,  made  in 
her  own  image,  for  whom  she  would  have  strewed 
the  bride-bed  with  delight;  and  now  she  could 
have  wept  to  see  the  ambition  falsified.  But 
the  gods  had  pronounced,  and  her  doom  was 
otherwise. 

She  lay  tossing  in  bed  that  night,  besieged  with 
feverish  thoughts.    There  were  dangerous  matters 


152     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

pending,  a  battle  was  toward,  over  the  fate  of 
which  she  hung  in  jealousy,  sympathy,  fear,  and 
alternate  loyalty  and  disloyalty  to  either  side. 
Now  she  was  re-incarnated  in  her  niece,  and  now 
in  Archie.  Now  she  saw,  through  the  girl's  eyes, 
the  youth  on  his  knees  to  her,  heard  his  persuasive 
instances  with  a  deadly  weakness,  and  received  his 
overmastering  caresses.  Anon,  with  a  revulsion, 
her  temper  raged  to  see  such  utmost  favours  of 
fortune  and  love  squandered  on  a  brat  of  a  girl,  one 
of  her  own  house,  using  her  own  name  —  a  deadly 
ingredient  —  and  that  "  didnae  ken  her  ain  mind 
an'  was  as  black  's  your  hat."  Now  she  trembled 
lest  her  deity  should  plead  in  vain,  loving  the  idea 
of  success  for  him  like  a  triumph  of  nature;  anon, 
with  returning  loyalty  to  her  own  family  and  sex, 
she  trembled  for  Kirstie  and  the  credit  of  the 
Elliotts.  And  again  she  had  a  vision  of  herself,  the 
day  over  for  her  old-world  tales  and  local  gossip, 
bidding  farewell  to  her  last  link  with  life  and 
brightness  and  love;  and  behind  and  beyond,  she 
saw  but  the  blank  butt-end  where  she  must  crawl 
to  die.  Had  she  then  come  to  the  lees?  she,  so 
great,  so  beautiful,  with  a  heart  as  fresh  as  a  girl's 
and  strong  as  womanhood?  It  could  not  be,  and 
yet  it  was  so;  and  for  a  moment  her  bed  was  hor- 
rible to  her  as  the  sides  of  the  grave.  And  she 
looked  forward  over  a  waste  of  hours,  and  saw 
herself  go  on  to  rage,  and  tremble,  and  be  softened, 
and  rage  again,  until  the  day  came  and  the  labours 
of  the  day  must  be  renewed. 

Suddenly  she  heard  feet  on  the  stairs  —  his  feet, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     153 

and  soon  after  the  sound  of  a  window-sash  flung 
open.  She  sat  up  with  her  heart  beating.  He 
had  gone  to  his  room  alone,  and  he  had  not  gone 
to  bed.  She  might  again  have  one  of  her  night 
cracks;  and  at  the  entrancing  prospect,  a  change 
came  over  her  mind;  with  the  approach  of  this 
hope  of  pleasure,  all  the  baser  metal  became  imme- 
diately obliterated  from  her  thoughts.  She  rose, 
all  woman,  and  all  the  best  of  woman,  tender,  piti- 
ful, hating  the  wrong,  loyal  to  her  own  sex  —  and 
all  the  weakest  of  that  dear  miscellany,  nourishing, 
cherishing  next  her  soft  heart,  voicelessly  flattering, 
hopes  that  she  would  have  died  sooner  than  have 
acknowledged.  She  tore  off  her  nightcap,  and  her 
hair  fell  about  her  shoulders  in  profusion.  Undy- 
ing coquetry  awoke.  By  the  faint  light  of  her 
nocturnal  rush,  she  stood  before  the  looking-glass, 
carried  her  shapely  arms  above  her  head,  and 
gathered  up  the  treasures  of  her  tresses.  She  was 
never  backward  to  admire  herself;  that  kind  of 
modesty  was  a  stranger  to  her  nature;  and  she 
paused,  struck  with  a  pleased  wonder  at  the  sight. 
"  Ye  daft  auld  wife ! "  she  said,  answering  a 
thought  that  was  not;  and  she  blushed  with  the 
innocent  consciousness  of  a  child.  Hastily  she  did 
up  the  massive  and  shining  coils,  hastily  donned 
a  wrapper,  and  with  the  rush-light  in  her  hand, 
stole  into  the  hall.  Below  stairs  she  heard  the 
clock  ticking  the  deliberate  seconds,  and  Frank 
jingling  with  the  decanters  in  the  dining-room. 
Aversion  rose  in  her,  bitter  and  momentary. 
"Nesty,  tippling  puggy!"  she  thought;   and  the 


iS4    WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

next  moment  she  had  knocked  guardedly  at 
Archie's  door  and  was  bidden  enter. 

Archie  had  been  looking  out  into  the  ancient 
blackness,  pierced  here  and  there  with  a  rayless 
star;  taking  the  sweet  air  of  the  moors  and  the 
night  into  his  bosom  deeply ;  seeking,  perhaps  find- 
ing, peace  after  the  manner  of  the  unhappy.  He 
turned  round  as  she  came  in,  and  showed  her  a 
pale  face  against  the  window-frame. 

"  Is  that  you,  Kirstie?  "  he  asked.    "  Come  in !  " 

"  It  ■$  unco  late,  my  dear,"  said  Kirstie,  affect- 
ing unwillingness. 

"  No,  no,"  he  answered,  "  not  at  all.  Come  in, 
if  you  want  a  crack.  I  am  not  sleepy,  God 
knows." 

She  advanced,  took  a  chair  by  the  toilet  table 
and  the  candle,  and  set  the  rush-light  at  her  foot. 
Something  —  it  might  be  in  the  comparative  dis- 
order of  her  dress,  it  might  be  the  emotion  that 
now  welled  in  her  bosom  —  had  touched  her  with 
a  wand  of  transformation,  and  she  seemed  young 
with  the  youth  of  goddesses. 

"  Mr.  Erchie,"  she  began,  "  what 's  this  that 's 
come  to  ye?  " 

"  I  am  not  aware  of  anything  that  has  come^" 
said  Archie,  and  blushed  and  repented  bitterly  that 
he  had  let  her  in. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  that'll  no  dae!"  said  Kirstie. 
"  It 's  ill  to  blind  the  eyes  of  love.  Oh,  Mr.  Erchie, 
tak'  a  thocht  ere  it 's  ower  late.  Ye  shouldnae  be 
impatient  o'  the  braws  o'  life,  they'll  a'  come  in 
their  saison,  like  the  sun  and  the  rain.     Ye 're 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     155 

young  yet ;  ye  've  mony  cantie  years  afore  ye.  S^e 
and  dinnae  wreck  yersel  at  the  outset  like  sae  mony 
ithers!  Hae  patience  —  they  telled  me  aye  that 
was  the  owercome  o'  life  —  hae  patience,  there  's 
a  braw  day  coming  yet.  Gude  kens  it  never  cam 
to  me;  and  here  I  am  wi'  nayther  man  nor  bairn 
to  ca'  my  ain,  wearying  a'  folks  wi'  my  ill  tongue, 
and  you  just  the  first,  Mr.  Erchie?" 

"  I  have  a  difficulty  in  knowing  what  you  mean," 
said  Archie. 

"  Weel,  and  I  '11  tell  ye,"  she  said.  "  It 's  just 
this,  that  I'm  feared.  I'm  feared  for  ye,  my 
dear.  Remember,  your  faither  is  a  hard  man, 
reaping  where  he  hasnae  sowed  and  gaithering 
where  he  hasnae  strawed.  It 's  easy  speakin',  but 
mind !  Ye  '11  have  to  look  in  the  gurly  face  o'm, 
where  it 's  ill  to  look,  and  vain  to  look  for  mercy. 
Ye  mind  me  o'  a  bonny  ship  pitten  oot  into  the 
black  and  gowsty  seas  —  ye  're  a'  safe  still  sittin' 
quait  and  crackin'  wi'  Kirstie  in  your  lown  chalmer ; 
but  whaur  will  ye  be  the  morn,  and  in  whatten 
horror  o'  the  fearsome  tempest,  cryin'  on  the  hills 
to  cover  ye  ?  " 

"  Why,  Kirstie,  you  're  very  enigmatical  to- 
night—  and  very  eloquent,"  Archie  put  in. 

"  And,  my  dear  Mr.  Erchie,"  she  continued,  with 
a  change  of  voice,  "  ye  mauna  think  that  I  canna 
sympathise  wi'  ye.  Ye  mauna  think  that  I  havena 
been  young  mysel'.     Langsyne,  when  I  was  a  bit 

lassie,  no  twenty  yet "  She  paused  and  sighed. 

"  Clean  and  caller,  wi'  a  fit  like  the  hinney  bee," 
she  continued.     "  I  was  aye  big  and  buirdly,  ye 


156     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

maun  understand;  a  bonny  figure  o'  a  woman, 
though  I  say  it  that  suldna  —  built  to  rear  bairns 
—  braw  bairns  they  suld  hae  been,  and  grand  I 
would  hae  likit  it!  But  I  was  young,  dear,  wi' 
the  bonny  glint  o'  youth  in  my  e'en,  and  little  I 
dreamed  I  'd  ever  be  tellin'  ye  this,  an  auld,  lanely, 
rudas  wife!  Weel,  Mr.  Erchie,  there  was  a  lad 
cam'  courtin'  me,  as  was  but  naetural.  Mony  had 
come  before,  and  I  would  nane  o'  them.  But  this 
yin  had  a  tongue  to  wile  the  birds  frae  the  lift 
and  the  bees  frae  the  fox-glove  bells.  Deary  me, 
but  it  's  lang  syne.  Folk  have  deed  sinsyne  and 
been  buried,  and  are  forgotten,  and  bairns  been 
born  and  got  merrit  and  got  bairns  o'  their  ain. 
Sinsyne  woods  have  been  plantit,  and  have  grawn 
up  and  are  bonny  trees,  and  the  joes  sit  in  their 
shadow,  and  sinsyne  auld  estates  have  changed 
hands,  and  there  have  been  wars  and  rumours  of 
wars  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  And  here  I  'm  still 
• — like  an  auld  droopit  craw  —  lookin'  on  and 
craikin'?  But,  Mr.  Erchie,  do  ye  no  think  that 
I  have  mind  o'  it  a'  still  ?  I  was  dwalling  then  in 
my  faither's  house ;  and  it 's  a  curious  thing  that 
we  were  whiles  trysted  in  the  Deil's  Hags.  And 
do  ye  no  think  that  I  have  mind  of  the  bonny 
simmer  days,  the  lang  miles,  o'  the  bluid-red 
heather,  the  cryin'  o'  the  whaups,  and  the  lad  and 
the  lassie  that  was  trysted?  Do  ye  no  think  that 
I  mind  how  the  hilly  sweetness  ran  about  my  hairt  ? 
Ay,  Mr.  Erchie,  I  ken  the  way  o'  it  —  fine  do  I 
ken  the  way  —  how  the  grace  o'  God  takes  them 
like  Paul  of  Tarsus,  when  they  think  o'  it  least, 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     157 

and  drives  the  pair  o'  them  into  a  land  which  is 
like  a  dream,  and  the  world  and  the  folks  in  't  are 
nae  mair  than  clouds  to  the  puir  lassie,  and  Heeven 
nae  mair  than  windle-straes,  if  she  can  but  plees- 
ure  him !  Until  Tarn  deed  —  that  was  my  story," 
she  broke  off  to  say,  "  he  deed,  and  I  wasna  at  the 
buryin'.  But  while  he  was  here,  I  could  take  care 
o'  mysel'.     And  can  yon  puir  lassie?" 

Kirstie,  her  eyes  shining  with  unshed  tears, 
stretched  out  her  hand  towards  him  appealingly; 
the  bright  and  the  dull  gold  of  her  hair  flashed 
and  smouldered  in  the  coils  behind  her  comely 
head,  like  the  rays  of  an  eternal  youth;  the  pure 
colour  had  risen  in  her  face;  and  Archie  was 
abashed  alike  by  her  beauty  and  her  story.  He 
came  towards  her  slowly  from  the  window,  took 
up  her  hand  in  his  and  kissed  it. 

"  Kirstie,"  he  said  hoarsely,  "  you  have  mis- 
judged me  sorely.  I  have  always  thought  of  her, 
I  wouldna  harm  her  for  the  universe,  my  woman." 

"  Eh,  lad,  and  that 's  easy  sayin',"  cried  Kirstie, 
"  but  it 's  nane  sae  easy  doin' !  Man,  do  ye  no 
comprehend  that  it 's  God's  wull  we  should  be 
blendit  and  glamoured,  and  have  nae  command 
over  our  ain  members  at  a  time  like  that?  My 
bairn,"  she  cried,  still  holding  his  hand,  "  think  o' 
the  puir  lass!  have  pity  upon  her,  Erchie!  and 
O,  be  wise  for  twa!  Think  o'  the  risk  she  rins! 
I  have  seen  ye,  and  what 's  to  prevent  ithers  ?  I 
saw  ye  once  in  the  Hags,  in  my  ain  howl,  and  I 
was  wae  to  see  ye  there  —  in  pairt  for  the  omen, 
for  I  think  there  's  a  weird  on  the  place  —  and  in 


158     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

pairt  for  puir  nakit  envy  and  bitterness  o'  hairt. 
It 's  strange  ye  should  forgather  there  tae !  God ! 
but  yon  puir,  thrawn,  auld  Covenanter  's  seen  a 
heap  o'  human  natur  since  he  lookit  his  last  on 
the  musket  barrels,  if  he  never  saw  nane  afore," 
she  added  with  a  kind  of  wonder  in  her  eyes. 

"  I  swear  by  my  honour  I  have  done  her  no 
wrong,"  said  Archie.  "  I  swear  by  my  honour  and 
the  redemption  of  my  soul  that  there  shall  none 
be  done  her.  I  have  heard  of  this  before.  I  have 
been  foolish,  Kirstie,  not  unkind  and,  above  all, 
not  base." 

"  There  's  my  bairn !  "  said  Kirstie,  rising.  "  I  '11 
can  trust  ye  noo,  I  '11  can  gang  to  my  bed  wi'  an 
easy  hairt."  And  then  she  saw  in  a  flash  how 
barren  had  been  her  triumph.  Archie  had  prom- 
ised to  spare  the  girl,  and  he  would  keep  it;  but 
who  had  promised  to  spare  Archie?  What  was  to 
be  the  end  of  it?  Over  a  maze  of  difficulties  she 
glanced,  and  saw,  at  the  end  of  every  passage,  the 
flinty  countenance  of  Hermiston.  And  a  kind  of 
horror  fell  upon  her  at  what  she  had  done.  She 
wore  a  tragic  mask.  "  Erchie,  the  Lord  peety  you, 
dear,  and  peety  me!  I  have  buildit  on  this  foun- 
dation," —  laying  her  hand  heavily  on  his  shoulder 
—  "  and  buildit  hie,  and  pit  my  hairt  in  the  buildin' 
of  it.  If  the  hale  hypothec  were  to  fa',  I  think, 
laddie,  I  would  dee!  Excuse  a  daft  wife  that 
loves  ye,  and  that  kenned  your  mither.  And  for 
His  name's  sake  keep  yersel'  frae  inordinate  de- 
sires ;  haud  your  heart  in  baith  your  hands,  carry 
it  canny  and  laigh ;  dinna  send  it  up  like  a  bairn's 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     159 

kite  into  the  collieshangie  o'  the  wunds?  Mind, 
Maister  Erchie  dear,  that  this  life's  a  disappoint- 
ment, and  a  mouth fu'  o'  mools  is  the  appointed 
end." 

"  Ay,  but,  Kirstie,  my  woman,  you  're  asking  me 
ower  much  at  last,"  said  Archie,  profoundly  moved, 
and  lapsing  into  the  broad  Scots.  "  Ye  're  asking 
what  nae  man  can  grant  ye,  what  only  the  Lord 
of  heaven  can  grant  ye  if  He  see  fit.  Ay!  And 
can  even  he?  I  can  promise  ye  what  I  shall  do, 
and  you  can  depend  on  that.  But  how  I  shall  feel 
—  my  woman,  that  is  long  past  thinking  of ! " 

They  were  both  standing  by  now  opposite  each 
other.  The  face  of  Archie  wore  the  wretched 
semblance  of  a  smile;  hers  was  convulsed  for  a 
moment. 

"  Promise  me  ae  thing,"  she  cried,  in  a  sharp 
voice.  "  Promise  me  ye  '11  never  do  naething  with- 
out telling  me." 

"  No,  Kirstie,  I  canna  promise  ye  that,"  he  re- 
plied.   "  I  have  promised  enough,  God  kens !  " 

"  May  the  blessing  of  God  lift  and  rest  upon  ye, 
dear !  "  she  said. 

"  God  bless  ye,  my  old  friend,"  said  he. 


CHAPTER   IX 

AT  THE   WEAVER'S   STONE 

IT  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  Archie  drew 
near  by  the  hill  path  to  the  Praying  Weaver's 
Stone.  The  Hags  were  in  shadow.  But  still, 
through  the  gate  of  the  Slap,  the  sun  shot  a  last 
arrow,  which  spread  far  and  straight  across  the 
surface  of  the  moss,  here  and  there  touching  and 
shining  on  a  tussock,  and  lighted  at  length  on  the 
gravestone  and  the  small  figure  awaiting  him  there. 
/The  emptiness  and  solitude  of  the  great  moors 
seemed  to  be  concentred  there,  and  Kirstie  pointed 
out  by  that  figure  of  sunshine  for  the  only  inhab- 
itant. His  first  sight  of  her  was  thus  excruciat- 
ingly sad,  like  a  glimpse  of  a  world  from  which 
all  light,  comfort,  and  society  were  on  the  point 
of  vanishing./  And  the  next  moment,  when  she 
had  turned  d\er  face  to  him  and  the  quick  smile 
had  enlightened  it,  the  whole  face  of  nature  smiled 
upon  him  in  her  smile  of  welcome.  Archie's  slow 
pace  was  quickened ;  his  legs  hasted  to  her  though 
his  heart  was  hanging  back.  The  girl,  upon  her 
side,  drew  herself  together  slowly  and  stood  up,  ex- 
pectant; she  was  all  languor,  her  face  was  gone 
white;   her  arms  ached  for  him,  her  soul  was  on 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     161 

tiptoes.  But  he  deceived  her,  pausing  a  few  steps 
away,  not  less  white  than  herself,  and  holding  up 
his  hand  with  a  gesture  of  denial. 

"  No,  Christina,  not  to-day,"  he  said.  "  To-day 
I  have  to  talk  to  you  seriously.  Sit  ye  down,  please, 
there  where  you  were.     Please !  "   he  repeated. 

The  revulsion  of  feeling  in  Christina's  heart 
was  violent.  To  have  longed  and  waited  these 
weary  hours  for  him,  rehearsing  her  endearments 
—  to  have  seen  him  at  last  come  —  to  have  been 
ready  there,  breathless,  wholly  passive,  his  to  do 
what  he  would  with  —  and  suddenly  to  have  found 
herself  confronted  with  a  grey-faced,  harsh  school- 
master —  it  was  too  rude  a  shock.  She  could  have 
wept,  but  pride  withheld  her.  She  sat  down  on  the 
stone,  from  which  she  had  arisen,  part  with  the 
instinct  of  obedience,  part  as  though  she  had  been 
thrust  there.  What  was  this?  Why  was  she  re- 
jected? Had  she  ceased  to  please  ?  She  stood  here 
offering  her  wares,  and  he  would  none  of  them! 
And  yet  they  were  all  his !  His  to  take  and  keep, 
not  his  to  refuse  though!  In  her  quick  petulant 
nature,  a  moment  ago  on  fire  with  hope,  thwarted 
love  and  wounded  vanity  wrought.  The  school- 
master that  there  is  in  all  men,  to  the  despair  of 
all  girls  and  most  women,  was  now  completely  in 
possession  of  Archie.  He  had  passed  a  night  of 
sermons ;  a  day  of  reflection ;  he  had  come  wound 
up  to  do  his  duty ;  and  the  set  mouth,  which  in  him 
only  betrayed  the  effort  of  his  will,  to  her  seemed 
the  expression  of  an  averted  heart.  It  was  the 
same  with  his  constrained  voice  and  embarrassed 


162     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

utterance ;  and  if  so  —  if  it  was  all  over  —  the  pang 
of  the  thought  took  away  from  her  the  power  of 
thinking. 

He  stood  before  her  some  way  off.  "  Kirstie, 
there  *s  been  too  much  of  this.  We  've  seen  too 
much  of  each  other."  She  looked  up  quickly  and 
her  eyes  contracted.  "  There  's  no  good  ever  comes 
of  these  secret  meetings.  They  're  not  frank,  not 
honest  truly,  and  I  ought  to  have  seen  it.  People 
have  begun  to  talk ;  and  it 's  not  right  of  me.  Do 
you  see?" 

"  I  see  somebody  will  have  been  talking  to  ye," 
she  said  sullenly. 

"  They  have,  more  than  one  of  them,"  replied 
Archie. 

"  And  whae  were  they  ?  "  she  cried.  "  And 
what  kind  o'  love  do  ye  ca'  that,  that 's  ready  to 
gang  round  like  a  whirligig  at  folk  talking?  Do 
ye  think  they  havena  talked  to  me  ?  " 

"  Have  they  indeed  ?  "  said  Archie,  with  a  quick 
breath.  "  That  is  what  I  feared.  Who  were  they? 
Who  has  dared " 

Archie  was  on  the  point  of  losing  his  temper. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  not  any  one  had  talked  to 
Christina  on  the  matter;  and  she  strenuously  re- 
peated her  own  first  question  in  a  panic  of  self- 
defence. 

"  Ah,  well !  what  does  it  matter  ?  "  he  said. 
"  They  were  good  folk  that  wished  well  to  us,  and 
the  great  affair  is  that  there  are  people  talking. 
My  dear  girl,  we  have  to  be  wise.  We  must  not 
wreck  our  lives  at  the  outset.    They  may  be  long 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     163 

and  happy  yet,  and  we  must  see  to  it,  Kirstie,  like 
God's  rational  creatures  and  not  like  fool  children. 
There  is  one  thing  we  must  see  to  before  all. 
You  're  worth  waiting  for,  Kirstie !  worth  waiting 
for  a  generation ;  it  would  be  enough  reward."  — 
And  here  he  remembered  the  schoolmaster  again, 
and  very  unwisely  took  to  following  wisdom. 
"  The  first  thing  that  we  must  see  to,  is  that  there 
shall  be  no  scandal  about  for  my  father's  sake. 
That  would  ruin  all;   do  ye  no  see  that?" 

Kirstie  was  a  little  pleased,  there  had  been  some 
show  of  warmth  of  sentiment  in  what  Archie  had 
said  last.  But  the  dull  irritation  still  persisted  in 
her  bosom;  with  the  aboriginal  instinct,  having 
suffered  herself,  she  wished  to  make  Archie  suffer. 

And  besides,  there  had  come  out  the  word  she 
had  always  feared  to  hear  from  his  lips,  the  name 
of  his  father.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that,  during 
so  many  days  with  a  love  avowed  between  them, 
some  reference  had  not  been  made  to  their  con- 
joint future.  It  had  in  fact  been  often  touched 
upon,  and  from  the  first  had  been  the  sore  point. 
Kirstie  had  wilfully  closed  the  eye  of  thought; 
she  would  not  argue  even  with  herself;  gallant, 
desperate  little  heart,  she  had  accepted  the  com- 
mand of  that  supreme  attraction  like  the  call  of 
fate  and  marched  blindfold  on  her  doom.  But 
Archie,  with  his  masculine  sense  of  responsibility, 
must  reason ;  he  must  dwell  on  some  future  good, 
when  the  present  good  was  all  in  all  to  Kirstie; 
he  must  talk  —  and  talk  lamely,  as  necessity  drove 
him  —  of  what  was  to  be.     Again  and  again  he 


164     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

had  touched  on  marriage;  again  and  again  been 
driven  back  into  indistinctness  by  a  memory  of 
Lord  Hermiston.  And  Kirstie  had  been  swift  to 
understand  and  quick  to  choke  down  and  smother 
the  understanding;  swift  to  leap  up  in  flame  at 
a  mention  of  that  hope,  which  spoke  volumes  to 
her  vanity  and  her  love,  that  she  might  one  day 
be  Mrs.  Weir  of  Hermiston;  swift,  also,  to  recog- 
nise in  his  stumbling  or  throttled  utterance  the 
death-knell  of  these  expectations,  and  constant, 
poor  girl!  in  her  large-minded  madness,  to  go  on 
and  to  reck  nothing  of  the  future.  But  these 
unfinished  references,  these  blinks  in  which  his 
heart  spoke,  and  his  memory  and  reason  rose  up 
to  silence  it  before  the  words  were  well  uttered, 
gave  her  unqualifiable  agony.  She  was  raised  up 
and  dashed  down  again  bleeding.  The  recurrence 
of  the  subject  forced  her,  for  however  short  a  time, 
to  open  her  eyes  on  what  she  did  not  wish  to  see; 
and  it  had  invariably  ended  in  another  disappoint- 
ment. So  now  again,  at  the  mere  wind  of  its  com- 
ing, at  the  mere  mention  of  his  father's  name  — 
who  might  seem  indeed  to  have  accompanied  them 
in  their  whole  moorland  courtship,  an  awful  figure 
in  a  wig  with  an  ironical  and  bitter  smile,  present 
to  guilty  consciousness  —  she  fled  from  it  head 
down. 

"  Ye  havena  told  me  yet,"  she  said,  "  who  was 
it  spoke  ?  " 

"  Your  aunt  for  one,"  said  Archie. 

"  Auntie  Kirstie  ?  "  she  cried.  "  And  what  do 
I  care  for  my  auntie  Kirstie  ?  " 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     165 

"  She  cares  a  great  deal  for  her  niece,"  replied 
Archie,  in  kind  reproof. 

"  Troth,  and  it 's  the  first  I  Ve  heard  of  it,"  re- 
torted the  girl. 

"  The  question  here  is  not  who  it  is,  but  what 
they  say,  what  they  have  noticed,"  pursued  the 
lucid  schoolmaster.  "  That  is  what  we  have  to 
think  of  in  self-defence." 

"  Auntie  Kirstie,  indeed !  A  bitter,  thrawn  auld 
maid  that  >s  fomented  trouble  in  the  country  be- 
fore I  was  born,  and  will  be  doing  it  still,  I  daur 
say,  when  I  'm  deid !  It 's  in  her  nature ;  it 's  as 
natural  for  her  as  it 's  for  a  sheep  to  eat." 

"  Pardon  me,  Kirstie,  she  was  not  the  only  one," 
interposed  Archie.  "  I  had  two  warnings,  two 
sermons,  last  night,  both  most  kind  and  considerate. 
Had  you  been  there,  I  promise  you  you  would  have 
grat,  my  dear !  And  they  opened  my  eyes.  I  saw 
we  were  going  a  wrong  way." 

"  Who  was  the  other  one?  "  Kirstie  demanded. 

By  this  time  Archie  was  in  the  condition  of  a 
hunted  beast.  He  had  come,  braced  and  reso- 
lute ;  he  was  to  trace  out  a  line  of  conduct  for  the 
pair  of  them  in  a  few  cold,  convincing  sentences; 
he  had  now  been  there  some  time,  and  he  was  still 
staggering  round  the  outworks  and  undergoing 
what  he  felt  to  be  a  savage  cross-examination. 

"Mr.  Frank!"  she  cried.  "  What  nex',  I  would 
like  to  ken?" 

"  He  spoke  most  kindly  and  truly." 

"What  like  did  he  say?" 

"  I  am  not  going  to  tell  you ;  you  have  nothing 


166     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

to  do  with  that,"  cried  Archie,  startled  to  find  he 
had  admitted  so  much. 

"  O,  I  have  naething  to  do  with  it !  "  she  re- 
peated, springing  to  her  feet.  "  A'body  at  Hermis- 
ton  's  free  to  pass  their  opinions  upon  me,  but  I 
have  naething  to  do  wi'  it!  Was  this  at  prayers 
like?  Did  ye  ca'  the  grieve  into  the  consultation? 
Little  wonder  if  a'body  's  talking,  when  ye  make 
a'body  ye're  confidants!  But  as  you  say,  Mr. 
Weir,  —  most  kindly,  most  considerately,  most 
truly,  I  'm  sure,  —  I  have  naething  to  do  with  it. 
And  I  think  I  '11  better  be  going.  I  '11  be  wishing 
you  good-evening,  Mr.  Weir."  And  she  made  him 
a  stately  curtsey,  shaking  as  she  did  so  from  head 
to  foot,  with  the  barren  ecstasy  of  temper. 

Poor  Archie  stood  dumfounded.  She  had 
moved  some  steps  away  from  him  before  he  re- 
covered the  gift  of  articulate  speech. 

"  Kirstie!  "   he  cried.    "  O,  Kirstie  woman!  " 

There  was  in  his  voice  a  ring  of  appeal,  a  clang 
of  mere  astonishment  that  showed  the  schoolmaster 
was  vanquished. 

She  turned  round  on  him.  "  What  do  ye  Kirstie 
me  for?  "  she  retorted.  "  What  have  ye  to  do  wi' 
me?    Gang  to  your  ain  freends  and  deave  them!  " 

He  could  only  repeat  the  appealing  "  Kirstie!  " 

"  Kirstie,  indeed !  "  cried  the  girl,  her  eyes  blaz- 
ing in  her  white  face.  "  My  name  is  Miss  Christina 
Elliott,  I  would  have  ye  to  ken,  and  I  daur  ye  to 
ca'  me  out  of  it.  If  I  canna  get  love,  I  '11  have 
respect,  Mr.  Weir.  I  'm  come  of  decent  people, 
and  I  '11  have  respect.    What  have  I  done  that  ye 


WEIR    OF    HERMISTON     167 

should  lightly  me?  What  have  I  done?  What 
have  I  done?  O,  what  have  I  done?"  and  her 
voice  rose  upon  the  third  repetition.  "  I  thocht 
—  I  thocht  —  I  thocht  I  was  sae  happy !  "  and 
the  first  sob  broke  from  her  like  the  paroxysm  of 
some  mortal  sickness. 
j?  Archie  ran  to  her.  He  took  the  poor  child  in 
his  arms,  and  she  nestled  to  his  breast  as  to  a 
mother's,  and  clasped  him  in  hands  that  were 
strong  like  vices.  He  felt  her  whole  body  shaken 
by  the  throes  of  distress,  and  had  pity  upon  her 
beyond  speech.  Pity,  and  at  the  same  time  a  be- 
wildered fear  of  this  explosive  engine  in  his  arms, 
whose  works  he  did  not  understand,  and  yet  had 
been  tampering  with.  There  arose  from  before 
him  the  curtains  of  boyhood,  and  he  saw  for  the 
first  time  the  ambiguous  face  of  woman  as  she  is. 
In  vain  he  looked  back  over  the  interview ;  he  saw 
not  where  he  had  offended.  It  seemed  unprovoked, 
a  v/ilful  convulsion  of  brute  nature.  .  .  . 


EDITORIAL   NOTE 

With  the  words  last  printed,  "  a  wilful  convulsion  of  brute 
nature,"  the  romance  of  Weir  of Hermiston  breaks  off.  They 
were  dictated,  I  believe,  on  the  very  morning  of  the  writer's 
sudden  seizure  and  death.  Weir  of  Hermiston  thus  remains 
in  the  work  of  Stevenson  what  Edwin  Drood  is  in  the  work 
of  Dickens  or  Denis  Duval  in  that  of  Thackeray :  or  rather 
it  remains  relatively  more,  for  if  each  of  those  fragments 
holds  an  honourable  place  among  its  author's  writings,  among 
Stevenson's  the  fragment  of  Weir  holds  certainly  the  highest. 

Readers  may  be  divided  in  opinion  on  the  question  whether 
they  would  or  they  would  not  wish  to  hear  more  of  the  in- 
tended course  of  the  story  and  destinies  of  the  characters. 
To  some,  silence  may  seem  best,  and  that  the  mind  should 
be  left  to  its  own  conjectures  as  to  the  sequel,  with  the  help 
of  such  indications  as  the  text  affords.  I  confess  that  this 
is  the  view  which  has  my  sympathy.  But  since  others,  and 
those  almost  certainly  a  majority,  are  anxious  to  be  told  all 
they  can,  and  since  editors  and  publishers  join  in  the  request, 
I  can  scarce  do  otherwise  than  comply.  The  intended  argu- 
ment, then,  so  far  as  it  was  known  at  the  time  of  the  writer's 
death  to  his  step-daughter  and  devoted  amanuensis,  Mrs. 
Strong,  was  nearly  as  follows  :  — 

Archie  persists  in  his  good  resolution  of  avoiding  further 
conduct  compromising  to  young  Kirstie's  good  name.  Taking 
advantage  of  the  situation  thus  created,  and  of  the  girl's  un- 
happiness  and  wounded  vanity,  Frank  Innes  pursues  his  pur- 
pose of  seduction ;  and  Kirstie,  though  still  caring  for  Archie 
in  her  heart,  allows  herself  to  become  Frank's  victim.  Old 
Kirstie  is  the  first  to  perceive  something  amiss  with  her,  and 
believing  Archie  to  be  the  culprit,  accuses  him,  thus  making 
him  aware  for  the  first  time  that  mischief  has  happened.  He 
does  not  at  once  deny  the  charge,  but  seeks  out  and  questions 


170    WEIR    OF    HER  MIST  ON 

young  Kirstie,  who  confesses  the  truth  to  him ;  and  he,  still 
loving  her,  promises  to  protect  and  defend  her  in  her  trouble. 
He  then  has  an  interview  with  Frank  Innes  on  the  moor, 
which  ends  in  a  quarrel,  and  in  Archie  killing  Frank  beside 
the  Weaver's  Stone.  Meanwhile  the  Four  Black  Brothers, 
having  become  aware  of  their  sister's  betrayal,  are  bent  on 
vengeance  against  Archie  as  her  supposed  seducer.  They 
are  about  to  close  in  upon  him  with  this  purpose,  when  he  is 
arrested  by  the  officers  of  the  law  for  the  murder  of  Frank. 
He  is  tried  before  his  own  father,  the  Lord  Justice-Clerk, 
found  guilty,  and  condemned  to  death.  Meanwhile  the  elder 
Kirstie,  having  discovered  from  the  girl  how  matters  really 
stand,  informs  her  nephews  of  the  truth  :  and  they,  in  a  great 
revulsion  of  feeling  in  Archie's  favour,  determine  on  an  action 
after  the  ancient  manner  of  their  house.  They  gather  a  fol- 
lowing, and  after  a  great  fight  break  the  prison  where  Archie 
lies  confined,  and  rescue  him.  He  and  young  Kirstie  there- 
after escape  to  America.  But  the  ordeal  of  taking  part  in  the 
trial  of  his  own  son  has  been  too  much  for  the  Lord  Justice- 
Clerk,  who  dies  of  the  shock.  "  I  do  not  know,"  adds  the 
amanuensis,  "  what  becomes  of  old  Kirstie,  but  that  character 
grew  and  strengthened  so  in  the  writing  that  I  am  sure  he  had 
some  dramatic  destiny  for  her." 

The  plan  of  every  imaginative  work  is  subject,  of  course,  to 
change  under  the  artist's  hand  as  he  carries  it  out ;  and  not 
merely  the  character  of  the  elder  Kirstie,  but  other  elements 
of  the  design  no  less,  might  well  have  deviated  from  the  lines 
originally  traced.  It  seems  certain,  however,  that  the  next 
stage  in  the  relations  of  Archie  and  the  younger  Kirstie 
would  have  been  as  above  foreshadowed;  this  conception 
of  the  lover's  unconventional  chivalry  and  unshaken  devo- 
tion to  his  mistress  after  her  fault  is  very  characteristic  of 
the  author's  mind.  The  vengeance  to  be  taken  on  the  seducer 
beside  the  Weaver's  Stone  is  prepared  for  in  the  first  words 
of  the  Introduction :  while  the  situation  and  fate  of  the  judge, 
confronting  like  a  Brutus,  but  unable  to  survive,  the  duty  of 
sending  his  own  son  to  the  gallows,  seems  clearly  to  have 
been  destined  to  furnish  the  climax  and  essential  tragedy  of 
the  tale.    How  this  circumstance  was  to  have  been  brought 


EDITORIAL    NOTE       171 

about  within  the  limits  of  legal  usage  and  social  possibility, 
seems  hard  to  conjecture;  but  it  was  a  point  to  which  the 
author  had  evidently  given  careful  consideration.  Mrs.  Strong 
says  simply  that  the  Lord  Justice-Clerk,  like  an  old  Roman, 
condemns  his  son  to  death ;  but  I  am  assured,  on  the  best 
legal  authority  of  Scotland,  that  no  judge,  however  powerful 
either  by  character  or  office,  could  have  insisted  on  presiding 
at  the  trial  of  a  near  kinsman  of  his  own.  The  Lord  Justice- 
Clerk  was  head  of  the  criminal  justiciary  of  the  country ;  he 
might  have  insisted  on  his  right  of  being  present  on  the  bench 
when  his  son  was  tried ;  but  he  would  never  have  been  allowed 
to  preside  or  to  pass  sentence.  Now  in  a  letter  of  Stevenson's 
to  Mr.  Baxter,  of  October  1892,  I  find  him  asking  for  materials 
in  terms  which  seem  to  indicate  that  he  knew  this  quite  well : 
—  "I  wish  Pitcairn's  * Criminal  Trials,'  quam primum.  Also 
an  absolutely  correct  text  of  the  Scots  judiciary  oath.  Also, 
in  case  Pitcairn  does  not  come  down  late  enough,  I  wish  as 
full  a  report  as  possible  of  a  Scots  murder  trial  between 
1 790-1820.  Understand,  the  fullest  possible.  Is  there  any 
book  which  would  guide  me  to  the  following  facts  ?  The 
Justice-Clerk  tries  some  people  capitally  on  circuit.  Certain 
evidence  cropping  up,  the  charge  is  transferred  to  the  Justice- 
Clerk's  own  son.  Of  course  in  the  next  trial  the  Justice-Clerk 
is  excluded,  and  the  case  is  called  before  the  Lord  Justice- 
General.  Where  would  this  trial  have  to  be?  I  fear  in 
Edinburgh,  which  would  not  suit  my  view.  Could  it  be 
again  at  the  circuit  town?"  The  point  was  referred  to  a 
quondam  fellow-member  with  Stevenson  of  the  Edinburgh 
Speculative  Society,  Mr.  Graham  Murray,  the  present  Solicitor- 
General  for  Scotland ;  whose  reply  was  to  the  effect  that  there 
would  be  no  difficulty  in  making  the  new  trial  take  place 
at  the  circuit  town:  that  it  would  have  to  be  held  there  in 
spring  or  autumn,  before  two  Lords  of  Justiciary;  and  that 
the  Lord  Justice-General  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it, 
this  title  being  at  the  date  in  question  only  a  nominal  one 
held  by  a  layman  (which  is  no  longer  the  case).  On  this 
Stevenson  writes,  "  Graham  Murray's  note  re  the  venue  was 
highly  satisfactory,  and  did  me  all  the  good  in  the  world." 
The  terms  of  his  inquiry  seem  to  imply  that  he  intended  other 
persons,  before  Archie,  to  have  fallen  first  under  suspicion  of 


172     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

the  murder ;  and  also  —  doubtless  in  order  to  make  the  rescue 
by  the  Black  Brothers  possible  —  that  he  wanted  Archie  to  be 
imprisoned  not  in  Edinburgh  but  in  the  circuit  town.  But 
they  do  not  show  how  he  meant  to  get  over  the  main  diffi- 
culty, which  at  the  same  time  he  fully  recognises.  Can  it  have 
been  that  Lord  Hermiston's  part  was  to  have  been  limited 
to  presiding  at  thejirst  trial,  where  the  evidence  incriminating 
Archie  was  unexpectedly  brought  forward,  and  to  directing 
that  the  law  should  take  its  course? 

Whether  the  final  escape  and  union  of  Archie  and  Christina 
would  have  proved  equally  essential  to  the  plot  may  perhaps 
to  some  readers  seem  questionable.  They  may  rather  feel 
that  a  tragic  destiny  is  foreshadowed  from  the  beginning  for 
all  concerned,  and  is  inherent  in  the  very  conditions  of  the 
tale.  But  on  this  point,  and  other  matters  of  general  criti- 
cism connected  with  it,  I  find  an  interesting  discussion  by  the 
author  himself  in  his  correspondence.  Writing  to  Mr.  J.  M. 
Barrie,  under  date  November  i,  1892,  and  criticising  that 
author's  famous  story,  of  The  Little  Minister,  Stevenson 
says :  — 

"  Your  descriptions  of  your  dealings  with  Lord  Rintoul  are 
frightfully  unconscientious.  .  .  .  The  Little  Minister  ought 
to  have  ended  badly ;  we  all  know  it  did,  and  we  are  infinitely 
grateful  to  you  for  the  grace  and  good  feeling  with  which  you 
have  lied  about  it.  If  you  had  told  the  truth,  I  for  one  could 
never  have  forgiven  you.  As  you  had  conceived  and  written 
the  earlier  parts,  the  truth  about  the  end,  though  indisputably 
true  to  fact,  would  have  been  a  lie,  or  what  is  worse,  a  dis- 
cord in  art.  If  you  are  going  to  make  a  book  end  badly,  it 
must  end  badly  from  the  beginning.  Now,  your  book  began 
to  end  well.  You  let  yourself  fall  in  love  with,  and  fondle, 
and  smile  at  your  puppets.  Once  you  had  done  that,  your 
honour  was  committed  —  at  the  cost  of  truth  to  life  you  were 
bound  to  save  them.  It  is  the  blot  on  Richard  Feverel,  for 
instance,  that  it  begins  to  end  well ;  and  then  tricks  you  and 
ends  ill.  But  in  this  case,  there  is  worse  behind,  for  the  ill 
ending  does  not  inherently  issue  from  the  plot  — the  story 
had,  in  fact,  ended  well  after  the  great  last  interview  between 
Richard  and  Lucy,  —  and  the  blind,  illogical  bullet  which 
smashes  all  has  no  more  to  do  between  the  boards  than  a  fly 


EDITORIAL    NOTE        173 

has  to  do  with  a  room  into  whose  open  window  it  comes 
buzzing.  It  might  have  so  happened;  it  needed  not;  and 
unless  needs  must,  we  have  no  right  to  pain  our  readers.  I 
have  had  a  heavy  case  of  conscience  of  the  same  kind  about 
my  Braxfield  story.  Braxfield  —  only  his  name  is  Hermiston 
—  has  a  son  who  is  condemned  to  death ;  plainly  there  is  a 
fine  tempting  fitness  about  this  —  and  I  meant  he  was  to  hang. 
But  on  considering  my  minor  characters,  I  saw  there  were  five 
people  who  would  —  in  a  sense,  who  must  —  break  prison  and 
attempt  his  rescue.  They  are  capable  hardy  folks  too,  who 
might  very  well  succeed.  Why  should  they  not  then  ?  Why 
should  not  young  Hermiston  escape  clear  out  of  the  country  ? 
and  be  happy,  if  he  could,  with  his  —  but  soft!  I  will  not 
betray  my  secret  nor  my  heroine.  ..." 

To  pass,  now,  from  the  question  how  the  story  would  have 
ended  to  the  question  how  it  originated  and  grew  in  the 
writer's  mind.  The  character  of  the  hero,  Weir  of  Hermis- 
ton, is  avowedly  suggested  by  the  historical  personality  of 
Robert  Macqueen,  Lord  Braxfield.  This  famous  judge  has 
been  for  generations  the  subject  of  a  hundred  Edinburgh  tales 
and  anecdotes.  Readers  of  Stevenson's  essay  on  the  Rae- 
burn  exhibition  in  Virginibus  Puerisque,  will  remember  how 
he  is  fascinated  by  Raeburn's  portrait  of  Braxfield,  even  as 
Lockhart  had  been  fascinated  by  a  different  portrait  of  the 
same  worthy  sixty  years  before  (see  Peter's  Letters  to  His 
Kinsfolk) ;  nor  did  his  interest  in  the  character  diminish  in 
later  life. 

Again,  the  case  of  a  judge  involved  by  the  exigencies  of 
his  office  in  a  strong  conflict  between  public  duty  and  private 
interest  or  affection,  was  one  which  had  always  attracted  and 
exercised  Stevenson's  imagination.  In  the  days  when  he  and 
Mr.  Henley  were  collaborating  with  a  view  to  the  stage,  Mr. 
Henley  once  proposed  a  plot  founded  on  the  story  of  Mr. 
Justice  Harbottle  in  Sheridan  Le  Fanu's  In  a  Glass  Darkly, 
in  which  the  wicked  judge  goes  headlong  per  fas  et  nefas 
to  his  object  of  getting  the  husband  of  his  mistress  hanged. 
Some  time  later  Stevenson  and  his  wife  together  wrote  a  play 
called  The  Hanging  Judge.  In  this,  the  title  character  is 
tempted  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  to  tamper  with  the  course 
of  justice,  in  order  to  shield  his  wife  from  persecution  by  a 


174     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

former  husband  who  reappears  after  being  supposed  dead. 
Bulwer's  novel  of  Paul  Clifford,  with  its  final  situation  of  the 
worldly-minded  judge,  Sir  William  Brandon,  learning  that  the 
highwayman  whom  he  is  in  the  act  of  sentencing  is  his  own 
son,  and  dying  of  the  knowledge,  was  also  well  known  to 
Stevenson,  and  no  doubt  counted  for  something  in  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  present  story. 

Once  more,  the  difficulties  often  attending  the  relation  of 
father  and  son  in  actual  life  had  pressed  heavily  on  Stevenson's 
mind  and  conscience  from  the  days  of  his  youth,  when  in  obey- 
ing the  law  of  his  own  nature  he  had  been  constrained  to  dis- 
appoint, distress,  and  for  a  time  to  be  much  misunderstood  by, 
a  father  whom  he  justly  loved  and  admired  with  all  his  heart. 
Difficulties  of  this  kind  he  had  already  handled  in  a  lighter 
vein  once  or  twice  in  fiction  — as  for  instance  in  the  Story  of 
a  Lie  and  in  The  Wrecker — before  he  grappled  with  them  in 
the  acute  and  tragic  phase  in  which  they  occur  in  the  present 
story. 

These  three  elements,  then,  the  interest  of  the  historical 
personality  of  Lord  Braxfield,  the  problems  and  emotions 
arising  from  a  violent  conflict  between  duty  and  nature  in  a 
judge,  and  the  difficulties  due  to  incompatibility  and  misunder- 
standing between  father  and  son,  lie  at  the  foundations  of  the 
present  story.  To  touch  on  minor  matters,  it  is  perhaps  worth 
notice,  as  Mr.  Henley  reminds  me,  that  the  name  of  Weir  had 
from  of  old  a  special  significance  for  Stevenson's  imagination, 
from  the  traditional  fame  in  Edinburgh  of  Major  Weir,  burned 
as  a  warlock,  together  with  his  sister,  under  circumstances  of 
peculiar  atrocity.  Another  name,  that  of  the  episodical  per- 
sonage of  Mr.  Torrance  the  minister,  is  borrowed  direct  from 
life,  as  indeed  are  the  whole  figure  and  its  surroundings  — 
kirkyard,  kirk,  and  manse  —  down  even  to  the  black  thread 
mittens:  witness  the  following  passage  from  a  letter  of  the 
early  seventies :  —  *  I've  been  to  church  and  am  not  depressed 
—  a  great  step.  It  was  at  that  beautiful  church  [of  Glencorse 
in  the  Pentlands,  three  miles  from  his  father's  country  home 
at  Swanston].  It  is  a  little  cruciform  place,  with  a  steep  slate 
roof.  The  small  kirkyard  is  full  of  old  gravestones;  one  of  a 
Frenchman  from  Dunkerque,  I  suppose  he  died  prisoner  in 
the  military  prison  hard   by.     And  one,  the  most  pathetic 


EDITORIAL    NOTE        175 

memorial  I  ever  saw :  a  poor  school-slate,  in  a  wooden  frame, 
with  the  inscription  cut  into  it  evidently  by  the  father's  own 
hand.  In  church,  old  Mr.  Torrance  preached,  over  eighty 
and  a  relic  of  times  forgotten,  with  his  black  thread  gloves 
and  mild  old  face."  A  side  hint  for  a  particular  trait  in  the 
character  of  Mrs.  Weir  we  can  trace  in  some  family  traditions 
concerning  the  writer's  own  grandmother,  who  is  reported  to 
have  valued  piety  much  more  than  efficiency  in  her  domestic 
servants.  The  other  women  characters  seem,  so  far  as  his 
friends  know,  to  have  been  pure  creation,  and  especially  that 
new  and  admirable  incarnation  of  the  eternal  feminine  in  the 
elder  Kirstie.  The  little  that  he  says  about  her  himself  is  in 
a  letter  written  a  few  days  before  his  death  to  Mr.  Gosse. 
The  allusions  are  to  the  various  moods  and  attitudes  of  people 
in  regard  to  middle  age,  and  are  suggested  by  Mr.  Gosse's 
volume  of  poems,  In  Russet  and  Silver.  "  It  seems  rather 
funny,"  he  writes,  "  that  this  matter  should  come  up  just  now, 
as  I  am  at  present  engaged  in  treating  a  severe  case  of  middle 
age  in  one  of  my  stories,  The  Justice-Clerk.  The  case  is  that 
of  a  woman,  and  I  think  I  am  doing  her  justice.  You  will  be 
interested,  I  believe,  to  see  the  difference  in  our  treatments. 
Secreta  Vitae  [the  title  of  one  of  Mr.  Gosse's  poems]  comes 
nearer  to  the  case  of  my  poor  Kirstie."  From  the  wonderful 
midnight  scene  between  her  and  Archie,  we  may  judge  what 
we  have  lost  in  those  later  scenes  where  she  was  to  have  taxed 
him  with  the  fault  that  was  not  his  —  to  have  presently  learned 
his  innocence  from  the  lips  of  his  supposed  victim  —  to  have 
then  vindicated  him  to  her  kinsmen  and  fired  them  to  the 
action  of  his  rescue.  The  scene  of  the  prison-breaking  here 
planned  by  Stevenson  would  have  gained  interest  (as  will 
already  have  occurred  to  readers)  from  comparison  with  the 
two  famous  precedents  in  Scott,  the  Porteous  mob,  and  the 
breaking  of  Portanferry  Jail. 

The  best  account  of  Stevenson's  methods  of  imaginative 
work  is  in  the  following  sentences  from  a  letter  of  his  own  to 
Mr.  W.  Craibe  Angus  of  Glasgow:  —  "I  am  still  a  'slow 
study,'  and  sit  for  a  long  while  silent  on  my  eggs.  Uncon- 
scious thought,  there  is  the  only  method  :  macerate  your  sub- 
ject, let  it  boil  slow,  then  take  the  lid  off  and  look  in  —  and 
there  your  stuff  is— good  or  bad."    The  several  elements 


176     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

above  noted  having  been  left  to  work  for  many  years  in  his 
mind,  it  was  in  the  autumn  of  1892  that  he  was  moved  to 
"  take  the  lid  off  and  look  in,"  —  under  the  influence,  it  would 
seem,  of  a  special  and  overmastering  wave  of  that  feeling  for 
the  romance  of  Scottish  scenery  and  character  which  was  at 
all  times  so  strong  in  him,  and  which  his  exile  did  so  much 
to  intensify.  I  quote  again  from  his  letter  to  Mr.  Barrie  on 
November  1  in  that  year:  — "It  is  a  singular  thing  that  I 
should  live  here  in  the  South  Seas  under  conditions  so  new 
and  so  striking,  and  yet  my  imagination  so  continually  inhabit 
the  cold  old  huddle  of  grey  hills  from  which  we  come.  I  have 
finished  David  Balfour,  I  have  another  book  on  the  stocks, 
The  Young  Chevalier,  which  is  to  be  part  in  France  and  part 
in  Scotland,  and  to  deal  with  Prince  Charlie  about  the  year 
1749;  and  now  what  have  I  done  but  begun  a  third,  which 
is  to  be  all  moorland  together,  and  is  to  have  for  a  centre- 
piece a  figure  that  I  think  you  will  appreciate  —  that  of  the 
immortal  Braxfield.  Braxfield  himself  is  my  grand  premier 
—  or  since  you  are  so  much  involved  in  the  British  drama, 
let  me  say  my  heavy  lead." 

Writing  to  me  at  the  same  date  he  makes  the  same  an- 
nouncement more  briefly,  with  a  list  of  the  characters  and  an 
indication  of  the  scene  and  date  of  the  story.  To  Mr.  Baxter 
he  writes  a  month  later,  "  I  have  a  novel  on  the  stocks  to  be 
called  The  Justice- Clerk.  It  is  pretty  Scotch  ;  the  grand  pre- 
mier is  taken  from  Braxfield  (O,  by  the  bye,  send  me  Cock- 
burn's  Memorials),  and  some  of  the  story  is,  well,  queer. 
The  heroine  is  seduced  by  one  man,  and  finally  disappears 
with  the  other  man  who  shot  him.  .  .  .  Mind  you,  I  expect 
The  Justice-Clerk  to  be  my  masterpiece.  My  Braxfield  is 
already  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy  for  ever,  and  so  far  as 
he  has  gone  far  my  best  character."  From  the  last  extract 
it  appears  that  he  had  already  at  this  date  drafted  some  of 
the  earlier  chapters  of  the  book.  He  also  about  the  same 
time  composed  the  dedication  to  his  wife,  who  found  it  pinned 
to  her  bed-curtains  one  morning  on  awaking.  It  was  always 
his  habit  to  keep  several  books  in  progress  at  the  same  time, 
turning  from  one  to  another  as  the  fancy  took  him,  and  find- 
ing rest  in  the  change  of  labour ;  and  for  many  months  after 
the  date  of  this  letter,  first  illness,  —  then  a  voyage  to  Auck- 


EDITORIAL    NOTE        177 

land, — then  work  on  the  Ebb-Tide,  on  a  new  tale  called  St. 
Ives,  which  was  begun  during  an  attack  of  influenza,  and  on 
his  projected  book  of  family  history,  —  prevented  his  making 
any  continuous  progress  with  Weir.  In  August  1893  he  says 
he  has  been  recasting  the  beginning.  A  year  later,  still  only 
the  first  four  or  five  chapters  had  been  drafted.  Then,  in  the 
last  weeks  of  his  life,  he  attacked  the  task  again,  in  a  sudden 
heat  of  inspiration,  and  worked  at  it  ardently  and  without  inter- 
ruption until  the  end  came.  No  wonder  if  during  those  weeks 
he  was  sometimes  aware  of  a  tension  of  the  spirit  difficult  to 
sustain.  "How  can  I  keep  this  pitch?"  he  is  reported  to 
have  said  after  finishing  one  of  the  chapters.  To  keep  the 
pitch  proved  indeed  beyond  his  strength ;  and  that  frail  organ- 
ism, taxed  so  long  and  so  unsparingly  in  obedience  to  his 
indomitable  will,  at  last  betrayed  him  in  mid  effort. 

There  remains  one  more  point  to  be  mentioned,  as  to  the 
speech  and  manners  of  the  Hanging  Judge  himself.  That 
these  are  not  a  whit  exaggerated,  in  comparison  with  what 
is  recorded  of  his  historic  prototype,  Lord  Braxfield,  is  certain. 
The  locus  classicus  in  regard  to  this  personage  is  in  Lord 
Cockburn's  Me?norials  of  his  Time.  "  Strong  built  and  dark, 
with  rough  eyebrows,  powerful  eyes,  threatening  lips,  and  a 
low  growling  voice,  he  was  like  a  formidable  blacksmith.  His 
accent  and  dialect  were  exaggerated  Scotch  ;  his  language, 
like  his  thoughts,  short,  strong,  and  conclusive.  Illiterate  and 
without  any  taste  for  any  refined  enjoyment,  strength  of  under- 
standing which  gave  him  power  without  cultivation,  only 
encouraged  him  to  a  more  contemptuous  disdain  of  all  natures 
less  coarse  than  his  own.  It  may  be  doubted  if  he  was  ever 
so  much  in  his  element  as  when  tauntingly  repelling  the  last 
despairing  claim  of  a  wretched  culprit,  and  sending  him  to 
Botany  Bay  or  the  gallows  with  an  insulting  jest.  Yet  this 
was  not  from  cruelty,  for  which  he  was  too  strong  and  too 
jovial,  but  from  cherished  coarseness."  Readers,  nevertheless, 
who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  social  history  of  Scotland 
will  hardly  fail  to  have  made  the  observation  that  Braxfield's 
is  an  extreme  case  of  eighteenth  century  manners,  as  he 
himself  was  an  eighteenth-century  personage  (he  died  in  1799 
in  his  seventy-eighth  year);  and  that  for  the  date  in  which 
the  story  is  cast  (18 14)  such   manners  are  somewhat  of  an 


178     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 

anachronism.  During  the  generation  contemporary  with  the 
French  Revolution  and  the  Napoleonic  wars,  — or  to  put  it 
another  way,  the  generation  that  elapsed  between  the  days 
when  Scott  roamed  the  country  as  a  High  School  and  Univer- 
sity student  and  those  when  he  settled  in  the  fulness  of  fame 
and  prosperity  at  Abbotsford,  —  or  again  (the  allusions  will 
appeal  to  readers  of  the  admirable  Gait)  during  the  intervals 
between  the  first  and  the  last  provostry  of  Bailie  Pawkie  in 
the  borough  of  Gudetown,  or  between  the  earlier  and  the  final 
ministrations  of  Mr.  Balwhidder  in  the  parish  of  Dalmailing, 
—  during  this  period  a  great  softening  had  taken  place  in 
Scottish  manners  generally,  and  in  those  of  the  Bar  and  Bench 
not  least.  "  Since  the  death  of  Lord  Justice-Clerk  Macqueen 
of  Braxfield,"  says  Lockhart,  writing  about  1817,  "the  whole 
exterior  of  judicial  deportment  has  been  quite  altered."  A 
similar  criticism  may  probably  hold  good  on  the  picture  of 
border  life  contained  in  the  chapter  concerning  the  Four 
Black  Brothers  of  Cauldstaneslap,  viz.,  that  it  rather  suggests 
the  ways  of  an  earlier  generation ;  nor  have  I  any  clew  to  the 
reasons  which  led  Stevenson  to  choose  this  particular  date,  in 
the  year  preceding  Waterloo,  for  a  story  which,  in  regard  to 
some  of  its  features  at  least,  might  seem  more  naturally  placed 
some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  before. 

If  the  reader  seeks,  farther,  to  know  whether  the  scenery 
of  Hermiston  can  be  identified  with  any  one  special  place 
familiar  to  the  writer's  early  experience,  the  answer,  I  think, 
must  be  in  the  negative.  Rather  it  is  distilled  from  a  number 
of  different  haunts  and  associations  among  the  moorlands  of 
southern  Scotland.  In  the  dedication  and  in  a  letter  to  me 
he  indicates  the  Lammermuirs  as  the  scene  of  his  tragedy, 
and  Mrs.  Stevenson  (his  mother)  tells  me  that  she  thinks  he 
was  inspired  by  recollections  of  a  visit  paid  in  boyhood  to  an 
uncle  living  at  a  remote  farmhouse  in  that  district  called  Over- 
shiels,  in  the  parish  of  Stow.  But  although  he  may  have 
thought  of  the  Lammermuirs  in  the  first  instance,  we  have 
already  found  him  drawing  his  description  of  the  kirk  and 
manse  from  another  haunt  of  his  youth,  namely,  Glencorse  in 
the  Pentlands.  And  passages  in  chapters  v.  and  viii.  point 
explicitly  to  a  third  district,  that  is,  the  country  bordering 
upon   Upper  Tweeddale  and  the  headwaters  of  the  Clyde. 


EDITORIAL    NOTE       179 

With  this  country  also  holiday  rides  and  excursions  from 
Peebles  had  made  him  familiar  as  a  boy :  and  this  seems  cer- 
tainly the  most  natural  scene  of  the  story,  if  only  from  its 
proximity  to  the  proper  home  of  the  Elliotts,  which  of  course 
is  in  the  heart  of  the  Border,  especially  Teviotdale  and  Ettrick. 
Some  of  the  geographical  names  mentioned  are  clearly  not 
meant  to  furnish  literal  indications.  The  Spango,  for  instance, 
is  a  water  running,  I  believe,  not  into  the  Tweed,  but  into  the 
Nith,  and  Crossmichael  as  the  name  of  a  town  is  borrowed 
from  Galloway. 

But  it  is  with  the  general  and  essential  that  the  artist  deals, 
and  questions  of  strict  historical  perspective  or  local  definition 
are  beside  the  mark  in  considering  his  work.  Nor  will  any 
reader  expect,  or  be  grateful  for,  comment  in  this  place  on 
matters  which  are  more  properly  to  the  point  —  on  the  seizing 
and  penetrating  power  of  the  author's  ripened  art  as  exhibited 
in  the  foregoing  pages,  the  wide  range  of  character  and  emo- 
tion over  which  he  sweeps  with  so  assured  a  hand,  his  vital 
poetry  of  vision  and  magic  of  presentment.  Surely  no  son 
of  Scotland  has  died  leaving  with  his  last  breath  a  worthier 
tribute  to  the  land  he  loved. 

Sidney  Colvin. 


GLOSSARY 


ae,  one. 

antinomian,  one  of  a  sect  which 
holds  that  under  the  Gospel 
dispensation  the  moral  law  is 
not  obligatory. 

Auld  Hornie,  the  Devil. 

ballant,  ballad. 

bauchles,  brogues,  old  shoes. 

bees  in  their  bonnet,  fads. 

birling,  whirling. 

black-a-vised,  dark-complex- 
ioned. 

bonnet-laird,  small  landed  pro- 
prietor. 

bool,  ball. 

brae,  rising  ground. 

butt  end,  end  of  a  cottage. 

byre,  cow-house. 

ca',  drive. 
caller,  fresh. 
canna,  cannot. 
canny,  careful,  shrewd. 
cantie,  cheerful. 
carline,  an  old  woman. 
chalmer,  chamber. 
claes,  clothes. 
clamjamfry,  crowd. 
clavers,  idle  talk. 
cock-laird,  a  yeoman. 
collieshangie,  turmoil. 
crack,  to  converse. 
cuddy,  donkey. 
cuist,  cast. 
cutty,  slut. 


daft,  mad,  frolicsome. 

dander,  to  saunter. 

danders,  cinders. 

daurna,  dare  not. 

deave,  to  deafen. 

demmy  brokens,  demi-broquins. 

dirdum,  vigour. 

disjaskit,  worn  out,  disreputable- 
looking. 

doer,  law  agent. 

dour,  hard. 

drumlie,  dark. 

dule-tree,  the  tree  of  lamenta- 
tion, the  hanging  tree:  dule  is 
also  Scots  for  boundary,  and  it 
may  mean  the  boundary  tree, 
the  tree  on  which  the  baron  hung 
interlopers. 

dunting,  knocking. 

dwaibly,  infirm,  rickety, 

earrand,  errattd. 
ettercap,  vixen. 

fechting,  fighting. 

feck,  quantity,  portion. 

feckless,  feeble,  powerless. 

fell,  strong  and  fiery. 

fey,  unlike  yourself,  strange,  as 

persons  are  observed  to  be  in 

the  hour  of  approaching  death 

or  disaster. 
fit,  foot. 
flyped,  turned  up,  turned  inside 

out. 
forgather,  to  fall  in  with. 
i\ile,fool. 


i82     WEIR    OF    HERMISTON 


f ushionless,  pithless ;  weak. 
fyle,  to  soil,  to  defile. 
fyleinent,  obloquy,  defilement. 

gaed,  went. 

gey  an',  very. 

gigot,  leg  of  mutton. 

girzie,  lit.  diminutive  of  Grizel, 
here  a  playful  nickname. 

glaur,  mud. 

glint,  glance,  sparkle. 

gloaming,  twilight. 

glower,  to  scowl. 

gobbets,  small  lumps. 

gowden,  golden. 

gowsty,  gusty. 

grat,  wept. 

grieve,  land  steward. 

guddle,  to  catch  fish  with  the 
hands  by  groping  under  the 
stones  or  banks. 

guid,  good. 

gumption,  common  sense,  judg- 
ment. 

gurley,  stormy,  surly. 

gyte,  beside  itself. 

haddit,  held. 

hae,  have,  take. 

hale,  whole. 

heels-ower-hurdie,  heels  ever 
head. 

hinney,  honey. 

hirstle,  to  bustle. 

hizzie,  wench. 

howl,  hovel. 

hunkered,  crouched. 

hypothec,  lit.  a  term  in  Scots  law 
meaning  the  security  given  by  a 
tenant  to  a  landlord,  as  furni- 
ture, produce,  etc.  ;  by  metonymy 
and  colloquially,  "the  whole 
structure?  "the  whole  af- 
fair'* 


idleset,  idleness. 

infeftment,  a  term  in  Scots  law 
originally  synonymous  with  in- 
vestiture. 

jeely-piece,  a  slice  of  bread  and 

.  jelly. 

jennipers,  juniper. 

jo,  sweetheart. 

justifeed,  executed,  made  the  vic- 

tim  of  justice, 
jyle,  jail. 

kebbuck,  cheese. 
ken,  to  know. 
kenspeckle,  conspicuous. 
kilted,  tucked  up. 
kyte,  belly. 

laigh,  low. 

laird,  landed  proprietor. 

lane,  alone. 

lave,  rest,  remainder. 

lown,  lonely,  still. 

lynn,  cataract. 

macers,  officers  of  the  court  [c£ 
Guy  Mannering,  last  chapter], 
maun,  must. 

menseful,  of  good  manners. 
mirk,  dark. 

misbegowk,      deception,     disap- 
pointment. 
mools,  mould,  earth. 
muckle,  much,  great,  big. . 
my  lane,  by  myself. 

nowt,  black  cattle. 

palmering,  walking  infirmly. 
panel,  in  Scots  law,  the  accused 

person  in  a  criminal  action,  the 

prisoner. 


GLOSSARY 


'83 


peel,  a  fortified  watch-tower. 
plew-stilts,  plough-handles. 
policy,  ornamental  grounds  of  a 

country  mansion. 
puddock,/hjf. 

quean,  wench. 

riffraff,  rabble. 
risping,  grating. 
rowt,  to  roar,  to  rant. 
rowth,  abundance. 
rudas,  haggard  old  woman. 
runt,  an  old  cow  past  breeding; 
opprobriously,  an  old  woman. 

sab,  sob. 

sanguishes,  sandwiches. 

sasine,  in  Scots  law,  the  act  of 
giving  legal  possession  of  feudal 
property,  or,  colloquially,  the 
deed  by  which  that  possession  is 
proved. 

sclamber,  to  scramble. 

sculduddery,  impropriety,  gross- 
ness. 

session,  the  Court  of  Session,  the 
supreme  court  of  Scotland. 

shauchling,  shuffling. 

shoo,  to  chase  gently. 

siller,  money. 

sinsyne,  since  then. 

skailing,  dispersing. 

skelp,  slap. 

skirling,  screaming. 

skreigh-o'-day,  daybreak. 


snash,  abuse. 
sneisty,  supercilious. 
sooth,  to  hum. 
speir,  to  ask. 
speldering,  sprawling. 
splairge,  to  splash. 
spunk,  spirit,  fire. 
steik,  to  shut. 
sugar-bool,  sugar-plum. 

tawpie,  a  slow,  foolish  slut. 

telling  you,  a  good  thing  for  you. 

thir,  these. 

thrawn,  cross-grained. 

toon,  town. 

two-names,    local   sobriquets    in 

addition  to  patronymic. 
tyke,  dog. 

unchancy,  unlucky. 

unco,     strange,     extraordinary ', 

very. 
upsitten,  impertinent. 

vivers,  victuals. 

waling,  choosing. 
warrandise,  warranty. 
waur,  worse. 
weird,  destiny. 
whammle,  to  upset. 
whaup,  curlew. 

windlestrae,     crested     dog's-tail 
grass. 

yin,  one. 


THE    MISADVENTURES   OF 
JOHN    NICHOLSON 


THE   MISADVENTURES   OF 
JOHN   NICHOLSON 

CHAPTER   I 

IN  WHICH  JOHN  SOWS  THE  WIND 

JOHN  VAREY  NICHOLSON  was  stupid; 
yet,  stupider  men  than  he  are  now  sprawling 
in  Parliament,  and  lauding  themselves  as  the 
authors  of  their  own  distinction.  He  was  of  a 
fat  habit,  even  from  boyhood,  and  inclined  to  a 
cheerful  and  cursory  reading  of  the  face  of  life; 
and  possibly  this  attitude  of  mind  was  the  original 
cause  of  his  misfortunes.  Beyond  this  hint  philoso- 
phy is  silent  on  his  career,  and  superstition  steps 
in  with  the  more  ready  explanation  that  he  was 
detested  of  the  gods. 

His  father  —  that  iron  gentleman  —  had  long 
ago  enthroned  himself  on  the  heights  of  the  Dis- 
ruption Principles.  What  these  are  (and  in  spite 
of  their  grim  name  they  are  quite  innocent)  no 
array  of  terms  would  render  thinkable  to  the  merely 
English  intelligence;  but  to  the  Scot  they  often 
prove  unctuously  nourishing,  and  Mr.  Nicholson 
found  in  them  the  milk  of  lions.  About  the  period 
when  the  churches  convene  at  Edinburgh  in  their 


i88     THE    MISADVENTURES 

annual  assemblies,  he  was  to  be  seen  descending 
the  mound  in  the  company  of  divers  red-headed 
clergymen:  these  voluble,  he  only  contributing 
oracular  nods,  brief  negatives,  and  the  austere 
spectacle  of  his  stretched  upper  lip.  The  names  of 
Candlish  and  Begg  were  frequent  in  these  inter- 
views, and  occasionally  the  talk  ran  on  the  Residu- 
ary Establishment  and  the  doings  of  one  Lee. 
A  stranger  to  the  tight  little  theological  kingdom 
of  Scotland  might  have  listened  and  gathered  liter- 
ally nothing.  And  Mr.  Nicholson  (who  was  not 
a  dull  man)  knew  this,  and  raged  at  it.  He  knew 
there  was  a  vast  world  outside,  to  whom  Disrup- 
tion Principles  were  as  the  chatter  of  tree-top  apes ; 
the  paper  brought  him  chill  whiffs  from  it;  he 
had  met  Englishmen  who  had  asked  lightly  if  he 
did  not  belong  to  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and 
then  had  failed  to  be  much  interested  by  his  elu- 
cidation of  that  nice  point;  it  was  an  evil,  wild, 
rebellious  world,  lying  sunk  in  dozenedness,  for 
nothing  short  of  a  Scot's  word  will  paint  this 
Scotsman's  feelings.  And  when  he  entered  into 
his  own  house  in  Randolph  Crescent  (south  side), 
and  shut  the  door  behind  him,  his  heart  swelled 
with  security.  Here,  at  least,  was  a  citadel  im- 
pregnable by  right-hand  defections  or  left-hand  ex- 
tremes. Here  was  a  family  where  prayers  came 
at  the  same  hour,  where  the  Sabbath  literature 
was  unimpeachably  selected,  where  the  guest  who 
should  have  leaned  to  any  false  opinion  was  in- 
stantly set  down,  and  over  which  there  reigned  all 
week,  and  grew  denser  on  Sundays,  a  silence  that 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     189 

was  agreeable  to  his  ear,  and  a  gloom  that  he 
found  comfortable. 

Mrs.  Nicholson  had  died  about  thirty,  and  left 
him  with  three  children:  a  daughter  two  years, 
and  a  son  about  eight  years  younger  than  John; 
and  John  himself,  the  unlucky  bearer  of  a  name 
infamous  in  English  history.  The  daughter,  Maria, 
was  a  good  girl  —  dutiful,  pious,  dull,  but  so  easily 
startled  that  to  speak  to  her  was  quite  a  perilous 
enterprise.  "  I  don't  think  I  care  to  talk  about 
that,  if  you  please/'  she  would  say,  and  strike  the 
boldest  speechless  by  her  unmistakable  pain;  this 
upon  all  topics  —  dress,  pleasure,  morality,  politics, 
in  which  the  formula  was  changed  to  "  my  papa 
thinks  otherwise,"  and  even  religion,  unless  it  was 
approached  with  a  particular  whining  tone  of 
voice.  Alexander,  the  younger  brother,  was  sickly, 
clever,  fond  of  books  and  drawing,  and  full  of 
satirical  remarks.  In  the  midst  of  these,  imagine 
that  natural,  clumsy,  unintelligent,  and  mirthful 
animal,  John;  mighty  well-behaved  in  comparison 
with  other  lads,  although  not  up  to  the  mark  of 
the  house  in  Randolph  Crescent;  full  of  a  sort  of 
blundering  affection,  full  of  caresses  which  were 
never  very  warmly  received;  full  of  sudden  and 
loud  laughter  which  rang  out  in  that  still  house 
like  curses.  Mr.  Nicholson  himself  had  a  great 
fund  of  humour,  of  the  Scots  order  —  intellectual, 
turning  on  the  observation  of  men ;  his  own  char- 
acter, for  instance  —  if  he  could  have  seen  it  in 
another  —  would  have  been  a  rare  feast  to  him; 
but  his  son's  empty  guffaws  over  a  broken  plate, 


190    THE    MISADVENTURES 

and  empty,  almost  light-hearted  remarks,  struck 
him  with  pain  as  the  indices  of  a  weak  mind. 

Outside  the  family  John  had  early  attached  him- 
self (much  as  a  dog  may  follow  a  marquis)  to  the 
steps  of  Alan  Houston,  a  lad  about  a  year  older 
than  himself,  idle,  a  trifle  wild,  the  heir  to  a  good 
estate  which  was  still  in  the  hands  of  a  rigorous 
trustee,  and  so  royally  content  with  himself  that 
he  took  John's  devotion  as  a  thing  of  course.  The 
intimacy  was  gall  to  Mr.  Nicholson;  it  took  his 
son  from  the  house,  and  he  was  a  jealous  parent ; 
it  kept  him  from  the  office,  and  he  was  a  martinet ; 
lastly,  Mr.  Nicholson  was  ambitious  for  his  family 
(in  which,  and  the  Disruption  Principles,  he  en- 
tirely lived),  and  he  hated  to  see  a  son  of  his 
play  second  fiddle  to  an  idler.  After  some  hesi- 
tation, he  ordered  that  the  friendship  should  cease 
—  an  unfair  command,  though  seemingly  inspired 
by  the  spirit  of  prophecy;  and  John,  saying  noth- 
ing, continued  to  disobey  the  order  under  the  rose. 

John  was  nearly  nineteen  when  he  was  one  day 
dismissed  rather  earlier  than  usual  from  his  father's 
office,  where  he  was  studying  the  practice  of  the 
law.  It  was  Saturday;  and  except  that  he  had  a 
matter  of  four  hundred  pounds  in  his  pocket  which 
it  was  his  duty  to  hand  over  to  the  British  Linen 
Company's  Bank,  he  had  the  whole  afternoon  at 
his  disposal.  He  went  by  Prince's  Street  enjoying 
the  mild  sunshine,  and  the  little  thrill  of  easterly 
wind  that  tossed  the  flags  along  that  terrace  of 
palaces,  and  tumbled  the  green  trees  in  the  garden. 
The  band  was  playing  down  in  the  valley  under 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     191 

the  castle;  and  when  it  came  to  the  turn  of  the 
pipers,  he  heard  their  wild  sounds  with  a  stirring 
of  the  blood.  Something  distantly  martial  woke 
in  him;  and  he  thought  of  Miss  Mackenzie,  whom 
he  was  to  meet  that  day  at  dinner. 

Now,  it  is  undeniable  that  he  should  have  gone 
directly  to  the  bank,  but  right  in  the  way  stood 
the  billiard-room  of  the  hotel  where  Alan  was 
almost  certain  to  be  found;  and  the  temptation 
proved  too  strong.  He  entered  the  billiard-room, 
and  was  instantly  greeted  by  his  friend,  cue  in 
hand. 

"  Nicholson,"  said  he,  "  I  want  you  to  lend  me 
a  pound  or  two  till  Monday." 

"  You  Ve  come  to  the  right  shop,  have  n't  you  ?  " 
returned  John.     "  I  have  twopence." 

"  Nonsense,"  said  Alan.  "  You  can  get  some. 
Go  and  borrow  at  your  tailor's;  they  all  do  it. 
Or  I  '11  tell  you  what :   pop  your  watch." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  dare  say,"  said  John.  "  And  how 
about  my  father  ?  " 

"  How  is  he  to  know  ?  He  does  n't  wind  it  up 
for  you  at  night,  does  he?  "  inquired  Alan,  at  which 
John  guffawed.  "No,  seriously;  I  am  in  a  fix," 
continued  the  tempter.  "  I  have  lost  some  money 
to  a  man  here.  I  '11  give  it  you  to-night,  and  you 
can  get  the  heirloom  out  again  on  Monday. 
Come ;  it 's  a  small  service,  after  all.  I  would  do 
a  good  deal  more  for  you." 

Whereupon  John  went  forth,  and  pawned  his 
gold  watch  under  the  assumed  name  of  John 
Froggs,  85  Pleasance.     But  the  nervousness  that 


192     THE    MISADVENTURES 

assailed  him  at  the  door  of  that  inglorious  haunt 
—  a  pawnshop  —  and  the  effort  necessary  to  in- 
vent the  pseudonym  (which,  somehow,  seemed  to 
him  a  necessary  part  of  the  procedure),  had  taken 
more  time  than  he  imagined;  and  when  he  re- 
turned to  the  billiard-room  with  the  spoils,  the 
bank  had  already  closed  its  doors. 

This  was  a  shrewd  knock.  "  A  piece  of  business 
had  been  neglected."  He  heard  these  words  in  his 
father's  trenchant  voice,  and  trembled,  and  then 
dodged  the  thought.  After  all,  who  was  to  know  ? 
He  must  carry  four  hundred  pounds  about  with 
him  till  Monday,  when  the  neglect  could  be  sur- 
reptitiously repaired;  and  meanwhile,  he  was  free 
to  pass  the  afternoon  on  the  encircling  divan  of 
the  billiard-room,  smoking  his  pipe,  sipping  a  pint 
of  ale,  and  enjoying  to  the  mast-head  the  modest 
pleasures  of  admiration. 

None  can  admire  like  a  young  man.  Of  all 
youth's  passions  and  pleasures,  this  is  the  most 
common  and  least  alloyed;  and  every  flash  of 
Alan's  black  eyes ;  every  aspect  of  his  curly  head ; 
every  graceful  reach,  every  easy,  stand-off  attitude 
of  waiting;  ay,  and  down  to  his  shirt-sleeves  and 
wrist-links,  were  seen  by  John  through  a  luxurious 
glory.  He  valued  himself  by  the  possession  of 
that  royal  friend,  hugged  himself  upon  the  thought, 
and  swam  in  warm  azure;  his  own  defects,  like 
vanquished  difficulties,  becoming  things  on  which 
to  plume  himself.  Only  when  he  thought  of  Miss 
Mackenzie  there  fell  upon  his  mind  a  shadow  of 
regret;   that  young   lady  was  worthy  of  better 


OF    JOHN 'NICHOLSON    193 

things  than  plain  John  Nicholson,  still  known 
among  schoolmates  by  the-  derisive  name  of 
"  Fatty  " ;  and  he  felt,  if  he  could  chalk  a  cue,  or 
stand  at  ease,  with  such  a  careless  grace  as  Alan, 
he  could  approach  the  object  of  his  sentiments 
with  a  less  crushing  sense  of  inferiority. 

Before  they  parted,  Alan  made  a  proposal  that 
was  startling  in  the  extreme.  He  would  be  at 
Colette's  that  night  about  twelve,  he  said.  Why 
should  not  John  come  there  and  get  the  money? 
To  go  to  Colette's  was  to  see  life,  indeed;  it  was 
wrong;  it  was  against  the  laws;  it  partook,  in  a 
very  dingy  manner,  of  adventure.  Were  it  known, 
it  was  the  sort  of  exploit  that  disconsidered  a  young 
man  for  good  with  the  more  serious  classes,  but 
gave  him  a  standing  with  the  riotous.  And  yet 
Colette's  was  not  a  hell;  it  could  not  come,  with- 
out vaulting  hyperbole,  under  the  rubric  of  a  gilded 
saloon;  and,  if  it  was  a  sin  to  go  there,  the  sin 
was  merely  local  and  municipal.  Colette  (whose 
name  I  do  not  know  how  to  spell,  for  I  was  never 
in  epistolary  communication  with  that  hospitable 
outlaw)  was  simply  an  unlicensed  publican,  who 
gave  suppers  after  eleven  at  night,  the  Edinburgh 
hour  of  closing.  If  you  belonged  to  a  club,  you 
could  get  a  much  better  supper  at  the  same  hour, 
and  lose  not  a  jot  in  public  esteem.  But  if  you 
lacked  that  qualification,  and  were  an  hungered, 
or  inclined  toward  conviviality  at  unlawful  hours, 
Colette's  was  your  only  port.  You  were  very  ill- 
supplied.  The  company  was  not  recruited  from 
the  Senate  or  the  Church,  though  the  Bar  was 

13 


i94       JOHN     NICHOLSON 

very  well  represented  on  the  only  occasion  on 
which  I  flew  in  the  face  of  my  country's  laws, 
and,  taking  my  reputation  in  my  hand,  penetrated 
into  that  grim  supper-house.  And  Colette's  fre- 
quenters, thrillingly  conscious  of  wrong-doing  and 
"  that  two-handed  engine  (the  policeman)  at  the 
door,"  were  perhaps  inclined  to  somewhat  feverish 
excess.  But  the  place  was  in  no  sense  a  very  bad 
one;  and  it  is  somewhat  strange  to  me,  at  this 
distance  of  time,  how  it  had  acquired  its  dangerous 
repute. 

In  precisely  the  same  spirit  as  a  man  may  debate 
a  project  to  ascend  the  Matterhorn  or  to  cross 
Africa,  John  considered  Alan's  proposal,  and, 
greatly  daring,  accepted  it.  As  he  walked  home, 
the  thoughts  of  this  excursion  out  of  the  safe 
places  of  life  into  the  wild  and  arduous,  stirred 
and  struggled  in  his  imagination  with  the  image 
of  Miss  Mackenzie  —  incongruous  and  yet  kin- 
dred thoughts,  for  did  not  each  imply  unusual 
tightening  of  the  pegs  of  resolution  ?  did  not  each 
woo  him  forth  and  warn  him  back  again  into 
himself? 

Between  there  two  considerations,  at  least,  he 
was  more  than  usually  moved;  and  when  he  got 
to  Randolph  Crescent,  he  quite  forgot  the  four 
hundred  pounds  in  the  inner  pocket  of  his  great- 
coat, hung  up  the  coat,  with  its  rich  freight,  upon 
his  particular  pin  of  the  hat-stand;  and  in  the 
very  action  sealed  his  doom. 


CHAPTER    II 

IN  WHICH  JOHN  REAPS  THE  WHIRLWIND 

ABOUT  half-past  ten  it  was  John's  brave 
L\  good-fortune  to  offer  his  arm  to  Miss 
X  JL  Mackenzie,  and  escort  her  home.  The 
night  was  chill  and  starry;  all  the  way  eastward 
the  trees  of  the  different  gardens  rustled  and  looked 
black.  Up  the  stone  gully  of  Leith  Walk,  when 
they  came  to  cross  it,  the  breeze  made  a  rush  and 
set  the  flames  of  the  street-lamps  quavering;  and 
when  at  last  they  had  mounted  to  the  Royal  Ter- 
race, where  Captain  Mackenzie  lived,  a  great  salt 
freshness  came  in  their  faces  from  the  sea.  These 
phases  of  the  walk  remained  written  on  John's 
memory,  each  emphasised  by  the  touch  of  that 
light  hand  on  his  arm ;  and  behind  all  these  aspects 
of  the  nocturnal  city  he  saw,  in  his  mind's  eye,  a 
picture  of  the  lighted  drawing-room  at  home  where 
he  had  sat  talking  with  Flora ;  and  his  father,  from 
the  other  end,  had  looked  on  with  a  kind  and  iron- 
ical smile.  John  had  read  the  significance  of  that 
smile,  which  might  have  escaped  a  stranger.  Mr. 
Nicholson  had  remarked  his  son's  entanglement 
with  satisfaction,  tinged  by  humour;  and  his 
smile,  if  it  still  was  a  thought  contemptuous,  had 
implied  consent. 


196     THE    MISADVENTURES 

At  the  captain's  door  the  girl  held  out  her  hand, 
with  a  certain  emphasis ;  and  John  took  it  and  kept 
it  a  little  longer,  and  said,  "  Good-night,  Flora, 
dear,"  and  was  instantly  thrown  into  much  fear  by 
his  presumption.  But  she  only  laughed,  ran  up 
the  steps,  and  rang  the  bell;  and  while  she  was 
waiting  for  the  door  to  open,  kept  close  in  the  porch, 
and  talked  to  him  from  that  point  as  out  of  a  forti- 
fication. She  had  a  knitted  shawl  over  her  head; 
her  blue  Highland  eyes  took  the  light  from  the 
neighbouring  street-lamp  and  sparkled;  and  when 
the  door  opened  and  closed  upon  her,  John  felt 
cruelly  alone. 

He  proceeded  slowly  back  along  the  terrace  in 
a  tender  glow;  and  when  he  came  to  Greenside 
Church,  he  halted  in  a  doubtful  mind.  Over  the 
crown  of  the  Calton  Hill,  to  his  left,  lay  the  way 
to  Colette's,  where  Alan  would  soon  be  looking 
for  his  arrival,  and  where  he  would  now  have  no 
more  consented  to  go  than  he  would  have  wilfully 
wallowed  in  a  bog;  the  touch  of  the  girl's  hand 
on  his  sleeve,  and  the  kindly  light  in  his  father's 
eyes,  both  loudly  forbidding.  But  right  before 
him  was  the  way  home,  which  pointed  only  to  bed, 
a  place  of  little  ease  for  one  whose  fancy  was  strung 
to  the  lyrical  pitch,  and  whose  not  very  ardent 
heart  was  just  then  tumultuously  moved.  The 
hilltop,  the  cool  air  of  the  night,  the  company  of 
the  great  monuments,  the  sight  of  the  city  under 
his  feet,  with  its  hills  and  valleys  and  crossing 
files  of  lamps,  drew  him  by  all  he  had  of  the  poetic, 
and  he  turned  that  way;  and  by  that  quite  innocent 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON      197 

deflection,  ripened  the  crop  of  his  venial  errors  for 
the  sickle  of  destiny. 

On  a  seat  on  the  hill  above  Greenside  he  sat  for 
perhaps  half  an  hour,  looking  down  upon  the  lamps 
of  Edinburgh,  and  up  at  the  lamps  of  heaven. 
Wonderful  were  the  resolves  he  formed;  beauti- 
ful and  kindly  were  the  vistas  of  future  life  that 
sped  before  him.  He  uttered  to  himself  the  name 
of  Flora  in  so  many  touching  and  dramatic  keys, 
that  he  became  at  length  fairly  melted  with  tender- 
ness, and  could  have  sung  aloud.  At  that  juncture 
a  certain  creasing  in  his  great-coat  caught  his  ear. 
He  put  his  hand  into  his  pocket,  pulled  forth  the 
envelope  that  held  the  money,  and  sat  stupefied. 
The  Calton  Hill,  about  this  period,  had  an  ill  name 
of  nights;  and  to  be  sitting  there  with  four  hun- 
dred pounds  that  did  not  belong  to  him  was  hardly 
wise.  He  looked  up.  There  was  a  man  in  a  very 
bad  hat  a  little  on  one  side  of  him,  apparently  look- 
ing at  the  scenery;  from  a  little  on  the  other  a 
second  night-walker  was  drawing  very  quietly  near. 
Up  jumped  John.  The  envelope  fell  from  his 
hands;  he  stooped  to  get  it,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment both  men  ran  in  and  closed  with  him. 

A  little  after,  he  got  to  his  feet  very  sore  and 
shaken,  the  poorer  by  a  purse  which  contained 
exactly  one  penny  postage-stamp,  by  a  cambric 
handkerchief,  and  by  the  all-important  envelope. 

Here  was  a  young  man  on  whom,  at  the  highest 
point  of  loverly  exaltation,  there  had  fallen  a  blow 
too  sharp  to  be  supported  alone;  and  not  many 
hundred  yards  away  his  greatest  friend  was  sitting 


198     THE    MISADVENTURES 

at  supper  —  ay,  and  even  expecting  him.  Was  it 
not  in  the  nature  of  man  that  he  should  run  there  ? 
He  went  in  quest  of  sympathy  —  in  quest  of  that 
droll  article  that  we  all  suppose  ourselves  to  want 
when  in  a  strait,  and  have  agreed  to  call  advice; 
and  he  went,  besides,  with  vague  but  rather  splen- 
did expectations  of  relief.  Alan  was  rich,  or  would 
be  so  when  he  came  of  age.  By  a  stroke  of  the  pen 
he  might  remedy  this  misfortune,  and  avert  that 
dreaded  interview  with  Mr.  Nicholson,  from  which 
John  now  shrunk  in  imagination  as  the  hand  draws 
back  from  fire. 

Close  under  the  Calton  Hill  there  runs  a  certain 
narrow  avenue,  part  street,  part  by-road.  The  head 
of  it  faces  the  doors  of  the  prison;  its  tail  de- 
scends into  the  sunless  slums  of  the  Low  Calton. 
On  one  hand  it  is  overhung  by  the  crags  of  the  hill, 
on  the  other  by  an  old  graveyard.  Between  these 
two  the  road- way  runs  in  a  trench,  sparsely  lighted 
at  night,  sparsely  frequented  by  day,  and  bordered, 
when  it  has  cleared  the  place  of  tombs,  by  dingy 
and  ambiguous  houses.  One  of  these  was  the  house 
of  Colette ;  and  at  his  door  our  ill-starred  John  was 
presently  beating  for  admittance.  In  an  evil  hour 
he  satisfied  the  jealous  inquiries  of  the  contraband 
hotel-keeper ;  in  an  evil  hour  he  penetrated  into  the 
somewhat  unsavoury  interior.  Alan,  to  be  sure, 
was  there,  seated  in  a  room  lighted  by  noisy  gas- 
jets,  beside  a  dirty  table-cloth,  engaged  on  a  coarse 
meal,  and  in  the  company  of  several  tipsy  members 
of  the  junior  Bar.  But  Alan  was  not  sober;  he 
had  lost  a  thousand  pounds  upon  a  horse-race, 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     199 

had  received  the  news  at  dinner-time,  and  was 
now,  in  default  of  any  possible  means  of  extrica- 
tion, drowning  the  memory  of  his  predicament. 
He  to  help  John!  The  thing  was  impossible;  he 
could  n't  help  himself. 

"  If  you  have  a  beast  of  a  father/'  said  he,  "  I 
can  tell  you  I  have  a  brute  of  a  trustee." 

"  I  'm  not  going  to  hear  my  father  called  a 
beast,"  said  John,  with  a  beating  heart,  feeling  that 
he  risked  the  last  sound  rivet  of  the  chain  that 
bound  him  to  life. 

But  Alan  was  quite  good-natured. 

"  All  right,  old  fellow,"  said  he.  "  Mos'  respec- 
'able  man  your  father."  And  he  introduced  his 
friend  to  his  companions  as  "  old  Nicholson  the 
what-d'ye-call-um's  son." 

John  sat  in  dumb  agony.  Colette's  foul  walls 
and  maculate  table-linen,  and  even  down  to  Co- 
lette's villainous  casters,  seemed  like  objects  in  a 
nightmare.  And  just  then  there  came  a  knock  and 
a  scurrying ;  the  police,  so  lamentably  absent  from 
the  Calton  Hill,  appeared  upon  the  scene;  and  the 
party,  taken  flagrante  delicto,  with  their  glasses  at 
their  elbow,  were  seized,  marched  up  to  the  police 
office,  and  all  duly  summoned  to  appear  as  wit- 
nesses in  the  consequent  case  against  that  arch- 
she-beener,  Colette. 

It  was  a  sorrowful  and  a  mightily  sobered  com- 
pany that  came  forth  again.  The  vague  terror  of 
public  opinion  weighed  generally  on  them  all; 
but  there  were  private  and  particular  horrors  on 
the  minds  of  individuals.    Alan  stood  in  dread  of 


2oo    THE    MISADVENTURES 

his  trustee,  already  sorely  tried.  One  of  the  group 
was  the  son  of  a  country  minister,  another  of  a 
judge;  John,  the  unhappiest  of  all,  had  David 
Nicholson  to  father,  the  idea  of  facing  whom  on 
such  a  scandalous  subject  was  physically  sickening. 
They  stood  awhile  consulting  under  the  buttresses 
of  St.  Giles;  thence  they  adjourned  to  the  lodg- 
ings of  one  of  the  number  in  North  Castle  Street, 
where  (for  that  matter)  they  might  have  had 
quite  as  good  a  supper,  and  far  better  drink,  than 
in  the  dangerous  paradise  from  which  they  had 
been  routed.  There,  over  an  almost  tearful  glass, 
they  debated  their  position.  Each  explained  he 
had  the  world  to  lose  if  the  affair  went  on,  and  he 
appeared  as  a  witness.  It  was  remarkable  what 
bright  prospects  were  just  then  in  the  very  act  of 
opening  before  each  of  that  little  company  of 
youths,  and  what  pious  consideration  for  the  feel- 
ings of  their  families  began  now  to  well  from  them. 
Each,  moreover,  was  in  an  odd  state  of  destitution. 
Not  one  could  bear  his  share  of  the  fine;  not  one 
but  evinced  a  wonderful  twinkle  of  hope  that 
each  of  the  others  (in  succession)  was  the  very 
man  who  could  step  in  to  make  good  the  deficit. 
One  took  a  high  hand ;  he  could  not  pay  his  share ; 
if  it  went  to  a  trial,  he  should  bolt ;  he  had  always 
felt  the  English  Bar  to  be  his  true  sphere.  Another 
branched  out  into  touching  details  about  his  family, 
and  was  not  listened  to.  John,  in  the  midst  of 
this  disorderly  competition  of  poverty  and  mean- 
ness, sat  stunned,  contemplating  the  mountain 
bulk  of  his  misfortunes. 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     201 

At  last,  upon  a  pledge  that  each  should  apply  to 
his  family  with  a  common  frankness,  this  conven- 
tion of  unhappy  young  asses  broke  up,  went  down 
the  common  stair,  and  in  the  grey  of  the  spring 
morning,  with  the  streets  lying  dead  empty  all  about 
them,  the  lamps  burning  on  into  the  daylight  in 
diminished  lustre,  and  the  birds  beginning  to 
sound  premonitory  notes  from  the  groves  of  the 
town  gardens,  went  each  his  own  way  with  bowed 
head  and  echoing  footfall. 

The  rooks  were  awake  in  Randolph  Crescent; 
but  the  windows  looked  down,  discreetly  blinded, 
on  the  return  of  the  prodigal.  John's  pass-key 
was  a  recent  privilege;  this  was  the  first  time  it 
had  been  used;  and,  oh!  with  what  a  sickening 
sense  of  his  unworthiness  he  now  inserted  it  into 
the  well-oiled  lock  and  entered  that  citadel  of  the 
proprieties !  All  slept ;  the  gas  in  the  hall  had  been 
left  faintly  burning  to  light  his  return;  a  dread- 
ful stillness  reigned,  broken  by  the  deep  ticking  of 
the  eight-day  clock.  He  put  the  gas  out,  and  sat 
on  a  chair  in  the  hall,  waiting  and  counting  the 
minutes,  longing  for  any  human  countenance. 
But  when  at  last  he  heard  the  alarm  spring  its 
rattle  in  the  lower  story,  and  the  servants  begin  to 
be  about,  he  instantly  lost  heart,  and  fled  to  his 
own  room,  where  he  threw  himself  upon  the  bed. 


CHAPTER   III 

IN  WHICH  JOHN   ENJOYS   THE   HARVEST 
HOME 

SHORTLY  after  breakfast,  at  which  he  as- 
sisted with  a  highly  tragical  countenance, 
John  sought  his  father  where  he  sat,  presum- 
ably in  religious  meditation,  on  the  Sabbath  morn- 
ings. The  old  gentleman  looked  up  with  that  sour, 
inquisitive  expression  that  came  so  near  to  smil- 
ing and  was  so  different  in  effect. 

"  This  is  a  time  when  I  do  not  like  to  be  dis- 
turbed/' he  said. 

"  I  know  that,"  returned  John ;  "  but  I  have  — ■ 
I  want  —  I  've  made  a  dreadful  mess  of  it,"  he 
broke  out,  and  turned  to  the  window. 

Mr.  Nicholson  sat  silent  for  an  appreciable  time, 
while  his  unhappy  son  surveyed  the  poles  in  the 
back  green,  and  a  certain  yellow  cat  that  was 
perched  upon  the  wall.  Despair  sat  upon  John  as 
he  gazed;  and  he  raged  to  think  of  the  dreadful 
series  of  his  misdeeds,  and  the  essential  innocence 
that  lay  behind  them. 

"  Well,"  said  the  father,  with  an  obvious  effort, 
but  in  very  quiet  tones,  "  what  is  it  ?  " 

"  Maclean  gave  me  four  hundred  pounds  to  put 


JOHN    NICHOLSON        203 

in  the  bank,  sir,"  began  John ;  "  and  I  'm  sorry  to 
say  that  I  Ve  been  robbed  of  it ! " 

"Robbed  of  it?"  cried  Mr.  Nicholson,  with  a 
strong  rising  inflection.  "  Robbed  ?  Be  careful 
what  you  say,  John !  " 

"  I  can't  say  anything  else,  sir ;  I  was  just 
robbed  of  it,"  said  John,  in  desperation,  sullenly. 

"  And  where  and  when  did  this  extraordinary 
event  take  place  ?  "  inquired  the  father. 

"  On  the  Calton  Hill  about  twelve  last  night." 

"The  Calton  Hill?"  repeated  Mr.  Nicholson. 
"  And  what  were  you  doing  there  at  such  a  time 
of  the  night?" 

"  Nothing,  sir,"  says  John. 

Mr.  Nicholson  drew  in  his  breath. 

"  And  how  came  the  money  in  your  hands  at 
twelve  last  night  ?  "  he  asked,  sharply. 

"  I  neglected  that  piece  of  business,"  said  John, 
anticipating  comment;  and  then  in  his  own  dia- 
lect :  "  I  clean  forgot  all  about  it." 

"  Well,"  said  his  father,  "  it 's  a  most  extraor- 
dinary story.  Have  you  communicated  with  the 
police?" 

"  I  have,"  answered  poor  John,  the  blood  leap- 
ing to  his  face.  "  They  think  they  know  the  men 
that  did  it.  I  dare  say  the  money  will  be  recov- 
ered, if  that  was  all,"  said  he,  with  a  desperate 
indifference,  which  his  father  set  down  to  levity; 
but  which  sprung  from  the  consciousness  of  worse 
behind. 

"Your  mother's  watch,  too?"  asked  Mr. 
Nicholson. 


204    THE    MISADVENTURES 

"  Oh,  the  watch  is  all  right!  "  cried  John.  "  At 
least,  I  mean  I  was  coming  to  the  watch  —  the 
fact  is,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  I  —  I  had  pawned 
the  watch  before.  Here  is  the  ticket ;  they  did  n't 
find  that ;  the  watch  can  be  redeemed ;  they  don't 
sell  pledges."  The  lad  panted  out  these  phrases, 
one  after  another,  like  minute  guns;  but  at  the 
last  word,  which  rang  in  that  stately  chamber  like 
an  oath,  his  heart  failed  him  utterly;  and  the 
dreaded  silence  settled  on  father  and  son. 

It  was  broken  by  Mr.  Nicholson  picking  up  the 
pawn-ticket :  "  John  Froggs,  85  Pleasance,"  he 
read;  and  then  turning  upon  John,  with  a  brief 
flash  of  passion  and  disgust,  "  Who  is  John 
Froggs  ?  "  he  cried. 

"  Nobody,"  said  John.     "  It  was  just  a  name." 

"  An  alias/'  his  father  commented. 

"  Oh !  I  think  scarcely  quite  that,"  said  the 
culprit ;  "  it 's  a  form,  they  all  do  it,  the  man 
seemed  to  understand,  we  had  a  great  deal  of  fun 
over  the  name " 

He  paused  at  that,  for  he  saw  his  father  wince 
at  the  picture  like  a  man  physically  struck;  and 
again  there  was  silence. 

"  I  do  not  think,"  said  Mr.  Nicholson,  at  last, 
"  that  I  am  an  ungenerous  father.  I  have  never 
grudged  you  money  within  reason,  for  any  avow- 
able  purpose;  you  had  just  to  come  to  me  and 
speak.  And  now  I  find  that  you  have  forgotten 
all  decency  and  all  natural  feeling,  and  actually 
pawned  —  pawned  —  your  mother's  watch.  You 
must  have  had  some  temptation;    I  will  do  you 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     205 

the  justice  to  suppose  it  was  a  strong  one.  What 
did  you  want  with  this  money?" 

"  I  would  rather  not  tell  you,  sir,"  said  John. 
"  It  will  only  make  you  angry." 

"  I  will  not  be  fenced  with,"  cried  his  father. 
"  There  must  be  an  end  of  disingenuous  answers. 
What  did  you  want  with  this  money  ? " 

"  To  lend  it  to  Houston,  sir,"  says  John. 

"  I  thought  I  had  forbidden  you  to  speak  to 
that  young  man?"  asked  the  father. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  John ;  "  but  I  only  met  him." 

"Where?"  came  the  deadly  question. 

And  "  In  a  billiard-room "  was  the  damning 
answer.  Thus,  had  John's  single  departure  from 
the  truth  brought  instant  punishment.  For  no 
other  purpose  but  to  see  Alan  would  he  have 
entered  a  billiard-room;  but  he  had  desired  to 
palliate  the  fact  of  his  disobedience,  and  now  it 
appeared  that  he  frequented  these  disreputable 
haunts  upon  his  own  account. 

Once  more  Mr.  Nicholson  digested  the  vile 
tidings  in  silence;  and  when  John  stole  a  glance 
at  his  father's  countenance,  he  was  abashed  to  see 
the  marks  of  suffering. 

"Well,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  at  last,  "I 
cannot  pretend  not  to  be  simply  bowed  down.  I 
rose  this  morning  what  the  world  calls  a  happy 
man  —  happy,  at  least,  in  a  son  of  whom  I  thought 
I  could  be  reasonably  proud " 

But  it  was  beyond  human  nature  to  endure  this 
longer,  and  John  interrupted  almost  with  a  scream. 
"  Oh,  wheest !  "  he  cried,  "  that 's  not  all,  that 's 


206     THE    MISADVENTURES 

not  the  worst  of  it  —  it 's  nothing !  How  could 
I  tell  you  were  proud  of  me?  Oh!  I  wish,  I 
wish  that  I  had  known;  but  you  always  said  I 
was  such  a  disgrace!  And  the  dreadful  thing  is 
this:  we  were  all  taken  up  last  night,  and  we 
have  to  pay  Colette's  fine  among  the  six,  or  we  '11 
be  had  up  for  evidence  —  shebeening  it  is.  They 
made  me  swear  to  tell  you;  but  for  my  part,"  he 
cried,  bursting  into  tears,  "  I  just  wish  that  I  was 
dead !  "  And  he  fell  on  his  knees  before,  a  chair 
and  hid  his  face. 

Whether  his  father  spoke,  or  whether  he  re- 
mained long  in  the  room  or  at  once  departed, 
are  points  lost  to  history.  A  horrid  turmoil  of 
mind  and  body ;  bursting  sobs ;  broken,  vanishing 
thoughts,  now  of  indignation,  now  of  remorse; 
broken  elementary  whirls  of  consciousness,  of  the 
smell  of  the  horse-hair  on  the  chair  bottom,  of  the 
jangling  of  church  bells  that  now  began  to  make 
day  horrible  throughout  the  confines  of  the  city, 
of  the  hard  floor  that  bruised  his  knees,  of  the 
taste  of  tears  that  found  their  way  into  his  mouth : 
for  a  period  of  time,  the  duration  of  which  I 
cannot  guess,  while  I  refuse  to  dwell  longer  on 
its  agony,  these  were  the  whole  of  God's  world 
for  John  Nicholson. 

When  at  last,  as  by  the  touching  of  a  spring,  he 
returned  again  to  clearness  of  consciousness  and 
even  a  measure  of  composure,  the  bells  had  but 
just  done  ringing,  and  the  Sabbath  silence  was 
still  marred  by  the  patter  of  belated  feet.  By  the 
clock  above  the  fire,  as  well  as  by  these  more 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     207 

speaking  signs,  the  service  had  not  long  begun ;  and 
the  unhappy  sinner,  if  his  father  had  really  gone 
to  church,  might  count  on  near  two  hours  of  only 
comparative  unhappiness.  With  his  father,  the 
superlative  degree  returned  infallibly.  He  knew 
it  by  every  shrinking  fibre  in  his  body,  he  knew 
it  by  the  sudden  dizzy  whirling  of  his  brain,  at 
the  mere  thought  of  that  calamity.  An  hour  and 
a  half,  perhaps  an  hour  and  three  quarters,  if  the 
doctor  was  long-winded,  and  then  would  begin 
again  that  active  agony  from  which,  even  in  the 
dull  ache  of  the  present,  he  shrunk  as  from  the 
bite  of  fire.  He  saw,  in  a  vision,  the  family  pew, 
the  somnolent  cushions,  the  Bibles,  the  psalm- 
books,  Maria  with  her  smelling-salts,  his  father 
sitting  spectacled  and  critical ;  and  at  once  he  was 
struck  with  indignation,  not  unjustly.  It  was  in- 
human to  go  off  to  church,  and  leave  a  sinner 
in  suspense,  unpunished,  unforgiven.  And  at  the 
very  touch  of  criticism,  the  paternal  sanctity  was 
lessened;  yet  the  paternal  terror  only  grew;  and 
the  two  strands  of  feeling  pushed  him  in  the  same 
direction. 

And  suddenly  there  came  upon  him  a  mad  fear 
lest  his  father  should  have  locked  him  in.  The 
notion  had  no  ground  in  sense;  it  was  probably 
no  more  than  a  reminiscence  of  similar  calamities 
in  childhood,  for  his  father's  room  had  always  been 
the  chamber  of  inquisition  and  the  scene  of  punish- 
ment; but  it  stuck  so  rigorously  in  his  mind  that 
he  must  instantly  approach  the  door  and  prove  its 
untruth.     As  he  went,  he  struck  upon  a  drawer 


208     THE    MISADVENTURES 

left  open  in  the  business  table.  It  was  the  money- 
drawer,  a  measure  of  his  father's  disarray:  the 
money-drawer  —  perhaps  a  pointing  providence! 
Who  is  to  decide,  when  even  divines  differ  between 
a  providence  and  a  temptation?  or  who,  sitting 
calmly  under  his  own  vine,  is  to  pass  a  judgment 
on  the  doings  of  a  poor,  hunted  dog,  slavishly 
afraid,  slavishly  rebellious,  like  John  Nicholson  on 
that  particular  Sunday?  His  hand  was  in  the 
drawer,  almost  before  his  mind  had  conceived  the 
hope;  and  rising  to  his  new  situation,  he  wrote, 
sitting  in  his  father's  chair  and  using  his  father's 
blotting-pad,  his  pitiful  apology  and  farewell: 

"  My  dear  Father,  —  I  have  taken  the  money,  but  I  will 
pay  it  back  as  soon  as  I  am  able.  You  will  never  hear  of  me 
again.  I  did  not  mean  any  harm  by  anything,  so  I  hope  you 
will  try  and  forgive  me.  I  wish  you  would  say  good-bye  to 
Alexander  and  Maria,  but  not  if  you  don't  want  to.  I  could 
not  wait  to  see  you,  really.  Please  try  to  forgive  me.  Your 
affectionate  son, 

"John  Nicholson." 

The  coins  abstracted  and  the  missive  written,  he 
could  not  be  gone  too  soon  from  the  scene  of  these 
transgressions;  and  remembering  how  his  father 
had  once  returned  from  church,  on  some  slight 
illness,  in  the  middle  of  the  second  psalm,  he  durst 
not  even  make  a  packet  of  a  change  of  clothes. 
Attired  as  he  was,  he  slipped  from  the  paternal 
doors,  and  found  himself  in  the  cool  spring  air, 
the  thin  spring  sunshine,  and  the  great  Sabbath 
quiet  of  the  city,  which  was  now  only  pointed  by 
the  cawing  of  the  rooks.    There  was  not  a  soul  in 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     209 

Randolph  Crescent,  nor  a  soul  in  Queensferry 
Street;  in  this  out-door  privacy  and  the  sense  of 
escape,  John  took  heart  again ;  and  with  a  pathetic 
sense  of  leave-taking,  he  even  ventured  up  the  lane 
and  stood  awhile,  a  strange  peri  at  the  gates  of  a 
quaint  paradise,  by  the  west  end  of  St.  George's 
Church.  They  were  singing  within;  and  by  a 
strange  chance,  the  tune  was  "  St.  George's,  Edin- 
burgh," which  bears  the  name,  and  was  first  sung 
in  the  choir  of  that  church.  "  Who  is  this  King 
of  Glory  ?  "  went  the  voices  from  within ;  and, 
to  John,  this  was  like  the  end  of  all  Christian 
observances,  for  he  was  now  to  be  a  wild  man  like 
Ishmael,  and  his  life  was  to  be  cast  in  homeless 
places  and  with  godless  people. 

It  was  thus,  with  no  rising  sense  of  the  adven- 
turous, but  in  mere  desolation  and  despair,  that  he 
turned  his  back  on  his  native  city,  and  set  out  on 
foot  for  California,  with  a  more  immediate  eye  to 
Glasgow. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  SECOND   SOWING 

IT  is  no  part  of  mine  to  narrate  the  adventures 
of  John  Nicholson,  which  were  many,  but 
simply  his  more  momentous  misadventures, 
which  were  more  than  he  desired,  and,  by  human 
standards,  more  than  he  deserved ;  how  he  reached 
California,  how  he  was  rooked,  and  robbed,  and 
beaten,  and  starved;  how  he  was  at  last  taken  up 
by  charitable  folk,  restored  to  some  degree  of  self- 
complacency,  and  installed  as  a  clerk  in  a  bank  in 
San  Francisco,  it  would  take  too  long  to  tell ;  nor 
in  these  episodes  were  there  any  marks  of  the  pe- 
culiar Nicholsonic  destiny,  for  they  were  just  such 
matters  as  befell  some  thousands  of  other  young 
adventurers  in  the  same  days  and  places.  But  once 
posted  in  the  bank,  he  fell  for  a  time  into  a  high 
degree  of  good  fortune,  which,  as  it  was  only  a 
longer  way  about  to  fresh  disaster,  it  behooves  me 
to  explain. 

It  was  his  luck  to  meet  a  young  man  in  what 
is  technically  called  a  "dive,"  and,  thanks  to  his 
monthly  wages,  to  extricate  this  new  acquaintance 
from  a  position  of  present  disgrace  and  possible 
danger  in  the  future.  This  young  man  was  the 
nephew  of  one  of  the  Nob  Hill  magnates,  who  run 


JOHN    NICHOLSON        211 

the  San  Francisco  Stock  Exchange,  much  as  more 
humble  adventurers,  in  the  corner  of  some  public 
park  at  home,  may  be  seen  to  perform  the  simple 
artifice  of  pea  and  thimble:  for  their  own  profit, 
that  is  to  say,  and  the  discouragement  of  public 
gambling.  It  was  thus  in  his  power  —  and,  as  he 
was  of  grateful  temper,  it  was  among  the  things 
that  he  desired  —  to  put  John  in  the  way  of  grow- 
ing rich;  and  thus,  without  thought  or  industry, 
or  so  much  as  even  understanding  the  game  at 
which  he  played,  but  by  simply  buying  and  selling 
what  he  was  told  to  buy  and  sell,  that  plaything 
of  fortune  was  presently  at  the  head  of  between 
eleven  and  twelve  thousand  pounds,  or,  as  he  reck- 
oned it,  of  upward  of  sixty  thousand  dollars. 

How  he  had  come  to  deserve  this  wealth,  any 
more  than  how  he  had  formerly  earned  disgrace 
at  home,  was  a  problem  beyond  the  reach  of  his 
philosophy.  It  was  true  that  he  had  been  indus- 
trious at  the  bank,  but  no  more  so  than  the  cashier, 
who  had  seven  small  children  and  was  visibly 
sinking  in  decline.  Nor  was  the  step  which  had 
determined  his  advance  —  a  visit  to  a  dive  with  a 
month's  wages  in  his  pocket  —  an  act  of  such 
transcendent  virtue,  or  even  wisdom,  as  to  seem  to 
merit  the  favour  of  the  gods.  From  some  sense  of 
this,  and  of  the  dizzy  see-saw  —  heaven-high,  hell- 
deep —  on  which  men  sit  clutching;  or  perhaps 
fearing  that  the  sources  of  his  fortune  might  be 
insidiously  traced  to  some  root  in  the  field  of  petty 
cash ;  he  stuck  to  his  work,  said  not  a  word  of  his 
new  circumstances,  and  kept  his  account  with  a 


212     THE    MISADVENTURES 

bank  in  a  different  quarter  of  the  town.  The  con- 
cealment, innocent  as  it  seems,  was  the  first  step 
in  the  second  tragi-comedy  of  John's  existence. 

Meanwhile,  he  had  never  written  home.  Whether 
from  diffidence  or  shame,  or  a  touch  of  anger,  or 
mere  procrastination,  or  because  (as  we  have  seen) 
he  had  no  skill  in  literary  arts,  or  because  (as  I 
am  sometimes  tempted  to  suppose)  there  is  a  law 
in  human  nature  that  prevents  young  men  —  not 
otherwise  beasts  —  from  the  performance  of  this 
simple  act  of  piety  —  months  and  years  had  gone 
by,  and  John  had  never  written.  The  habit  of  not 
writing,  indeed,  was  already  fixed  before  he  had 
begun  to  come  into  his  fortune;  and  it  was  only 
the  difficulty  of  breaking  this  long  silence  that  with- 
held him  from  an  instant  restitution  of  the  money 
he  had  stolen  or  (as  he  preferred  to  call  it)  bor- 
rowed. In  vain  he  sat  before  paper,  attending  on 
inspiration ;  that  heavenly  nymph,  beyond  suggest- 
ing the  words  "  my  dear  father/'  remained  obsti- 
nately silent;  and  presently  John  would  crumple 
up  the  sheet  and  decide,  as  soon  as  he  had  "  a 
good  chance,"  to  carry  the  money  home  in  person. 
And  this  delay,  which  is  indefensible,  was  his 
second  step  into  the  snares  of  fortune. 

Ten  years  had  passed,  and  John  was  drawing 
near  to  thirty.  He  had  kept  the  promise  of  his 
boyhood,  and  was  now  of  a  lusty  frame,  verging 
toward  corpulence;  good  features,  good  eyes,  a 
genial  manner,  a  ready  laugh,  a  long  pair  of  sandy 
whiskers,  a  dash  of  an  American  accent,  a  close 
familiarity  with  the  great  American  joke,  and  a 


OF    JOHN     NICHOLSON     213 

certain  likeness  to  a  R-y-1  P-rs-a-ge,  who  shall  re- 
main nameless  for  me,  made  up  the  man's  externals 
as  he  could  be  viewed  in  society.  Inwardly,  in 
spite  of  his  gross  body  and  highly  masculine  whis- 
kers, he  was  more  like  a  maiden  lady  than  a  man 
of  twenty-nine. 

It  chanced  one  day,  as  he  was  strolling  down 
Market  Street  on  the  eve  of  his  fortnight's  holi- 
day, that  his  eye  was  caught  by  certain  railway 
bills,  and  in  very  idleness  of  mind  he  calculated 
that  he  might  be  home  for  Christmas  if  he  started 
on  the  morrow.  The  fancy  thrilled  him  with  de- 
sire, and  in  one  moment  he  decided  he  would  go. 

There  was  much  to  be  done:  his  portmanteau 
to  be  packed,  a  credit  to  be  got  from  the  bank 
where  he  was  a  wealthy  customer,  and  certain 
offices  to  be  transacted  for  that  other  bank  in 
which  he  was  an  humble  clerk ;  and  it  chanced,  in 
conformity  with  human  nature,  that  out  of  all  this 
business  it  was  the  last  that  came  to  be  neglected. 
Night  found  him,  not  only  equipped  with  money  of 
his  own,  but  once  more  (as  on  that  former  occa- 
sion) saddled  with  a  considerable  sum  of  other 
people's. 

Now  it  chanced  there  lived  in  the  same  boarding- 
house  a  fellow-clerk  of  his,  an  honest  fellow,  with 
what  is  called  a  weakness  for  drink  —  though  it 
might,  in  this  case,  have  been  called  a  strength, 
for  the  victim  had  been  drunk  for  weeks  together 
without  the  briefest  intermission.  To  this  unfortu- 
nate John  intrusted  a  letter  with  an  inclosure  of 
bonds,  addressed  to  the  bank  manager.     Even  as 


2i4     THE    MISADVENTURES 

he  did  so  he  thought  he  perceived  a  certain  haziness 
of  eye  and  speech  in  his  trustee ;  but  he  was  too 
hopeful  to  be  stayed,  silenced  the  voice  of  warning 
in  his  bosom,  and  with  one  and  the  same  gesture 
committed  the  money  to  the  clerk,  and  himself 
into  the  hands  of  destiny. 

I  dwell,  even  at  the  risk  of  tedium,  on  John's 
minutest  errors,  his  case  being  so  perplexing  to 
the  moralist ;  but  we  have  done  with  them  now,  the 
roll  is  closed,  the  reader  has  the  worst  of  our  poor 
hero,  and  I  leave  him  to  judge  for  himself  whether 
he  or  John  has  been  the  less  deserving.  Hence- 
forth we  have  to  follow  the  spectacle  of  a  man  who 
was  a  mere  whip-top  for  calamity;  on  whose  un- 
merited misadventures  not  even  the  humourist  can 
look  without  pity,  and  not  even  the  philosopher 
without  alarm. 

That  same  night  the  clerk  entered  upon  a  bout 
of  drunkenness  so  consistent  as  to  surprise  even 
his  intimate  acquaintance.  He  was  speedily 
ejected  from  the  boarding-house;  deposited  his 
portmanteau  with  a  perfect  stranger,  who  did  not 
even  catch  his  name;  wandered  he  knew  not 
where,  and  was  at  last  hove-to,  all  standing,  in  a 
hospital  at  Sacramento.  There,  under  the  im- 
penetrable alias  of  the  number  of  his  bed,  the  crapu- 
lous being  lay  for  some  more  days  unconscious  of 
all  things,  and  of  one  thing  in  particular:  that 
the  police  were  after  him.  Two  months  had  come 
and  gone  before  the  convalescent  in  the  Sacra- 
mento hospital  was  identified  with  Kirkman,  the 
absconding  San  Francisco  clerk;  even  then,  there 


OF    JOHN     NICHOLSON     215 

must  elapse  nearly  a  fortnight  more  till  the  perfect 
stranger  could  be  hunted  up,  the  portmanteau 
recovered,  and  John's  letter  carried  at  length  to  its 
destination,  the  seal  still  unbroken,  the  inclosure 
still  intact. 

Meanwhile,  John  had  gone  upon  his  holidays 
without  a  word,  which  was  irregular;  and  there 
had  disappeared  with  him  a  certain  sum  of  money, 
which  was  out  of  all  bounds  of  palliation.  But  he 
was  known  to  be  careless,  and  believed  to  be  hon- 
est; the  manager  besides  had  a  regard  for  him; 
and  little  was  said,  although  something  was  no 
doubt  thought,  until  the  fortnight  was  finally  at 
an  end,  and  the  time  had  come  for  John  to  reap- 
pear. Then,  indeed,  the  affair  began  to  look  black ; 
and  when  inquiries  were  made,  and  the  penniless 
clerk  was  found  to  have  amassed  thousands  of  dol- 
lars, and  kept  them  secretly  in  a  rival  establishment, 
the  stoutest  of  his  friends  abandoned  him,  the 
books  were  overhauled  for  traces  of  ancient  and 
artful  fraud,  and  though  none  were  found,  there 
still  prevailed  a  general  impression  of  loss.  The 
telegraph  was  set  in  motion;  and  the  correspond- 
ent of  the  bank  in  Edinburgh,  for  which  place  it 
was  understood  that  John  had  armed  himself  with 
extensive  credits,  was  warned  to  communicate  with 
the  police. 

Now  this  correspondent  was  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Nicholson's;  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the  tale 
of  John's  calamitous  disappearance  from  Edin- 
burgh ;  and  putting  one  thing  with  another,  hasted 
with  the  first  word  of  this  scandal,  not  to  the  police, 


2i6       JOHN    NICHOLSON 

but  to  his  friend.  The  old  gentleman  had  long 
regarded  his  son  as  one  dead;  John's  place  had 
been  taken,  the  memory  of  his  faults  had  already 
fallen  to  be  one  of  those  old  aches,  which  awaken 
again  indeed  upon  occasion,  but  which  we  can 
always  vanquish  by  an  effort  of  the  will;  and  to 
have  the  long  lost  resuscitated  in  a  fresh  disgrace 
was  doubly  bitter. 

"  Macewen,"  said  the  old  man,  "  this  must  be 
hushed  up,  if  possible.  If  I  give  you  a  check  for 
this  sum,  about  which  they  are  certain,  could  you 
take  it  on  yourself  to  let  the  matter  rest  ?  " 

"  I  will,"  said  Macewen.  "  I  will  take  the  risk 
of  it." 

"  You  understand,"  resumed  Mr.  Nicholson, 
speaking  precisely,  but  with  ashen  lips,  "  I  do  this 
for  my  family,  not  for  that  unhappy  young  man. 
If  it  should  turn  out  that  these  suspicions  are  cor- 
rect, and  he  has  embezzled  large  sums,  he  must 
lie  on  his  bed  as  he  has  made  it."  And  then  look- 
ing up  at  Macewen  with  a  nod,  and  one  of  his 
strange  smiles :  "  Good-bye,"  said  he ;  and  Mac- 
ewen, perceiving  the  case  to  be  too  grave  for  con- 
solation, took  himself  off,  and  blessed  God  on  his 
way  home  that  he  was  childless. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   PRODIGAL'S   RETURN 

BY  a  little  after  noon  on  the  eve  of  Christ- 
k  mas,  John  had  left  his  portmanteau  in  the 
"  cloak-room,  and  stepped  forth  into  Prince's 
Street  with  a  wonderful  expansion  of  the  soul, 
such  as  men  enjoy  on  the  completion  of  long- 
nourished  schemes.  He  was  at  home  again,  in- 
cognito and  rich;  presently  he  could  enter  his 
father's  house  by  means  of  the  pass-key,  which 
he  had  piously  preserved  through  all  his  wander- 
ings ;  he  would  throw  down  the  borrowed  money ; 
there  would  be  a  reconciliation,  the  details  of 
which  he  frequently  arranged;  and  he  saw  him- 
self, during  the  next  month,  made  welcome  in 
many  stately  houses  at  many  frigid  dinner-parties, 
taking  his  share  in  the  conversation  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  man  and  the  traveller,  and  laying  down 
the  law  upon  finance  with  the  authority  of  the 
successful  investor.  But  this  programme  was  not 
to  be  begun  before  evening  —  not  till  just  before 
dinner,  indeed,  at  which  meal  the  reassembled 
family  were  to  sit  roseate,  and  the  best  wine,  the 
modern  fatted  calf,  should  flow  for  the  prodigal's 
return. 


218     THE     MISADVENTURES 

v/ 

Meanwhile  he  walked  familiar  streets,  merry 
reminiscences  crowding  round  him,  sad  ones  also, 
both  with  the  same  surprising  pathos.  The  keen 
frosty  air;  the  low,  rosy,  wintery  sun;  the  castle, 
hailing  him  like  an  old  acquaintance;  the  names 
of  friends  on  door-plates;  the  sight  of  friends 
whom  he  seemed  to  recognise,  and  whom  he 
eagerly  avoided,  in  the  streets;  the  pleasant  chant 
of  the  north  country  accent;  the  dome  of  St. 
George's  reminding  him  of  his  last  penitential 
moments  in  the  lane,  and  of  that  King  of  Glory 
whose  name  had  echoed  ever  since  in  the  saddest 
corner  of  his  memory;  and  the  gutters  where  he 
had  learned  to  slide,  and  the  shop  where  he  had 
bought  his  skates,  and  the  stones  on  which  he 
had  trod,  and  the  railings  in  which  he  had  rattled 
his  clachan  as  he  went  to  school;  and  all  those 
thousand  and  one  nameless  particulars,  which 
the  eye  sees  without  noting,  which  the  memory 
keeps  indeed  yet  without  knowing,  and  which, 
taken  one  with  another,  build  up  for  us  the 
aspect  of  the  place  that  we  call  home:  all  these 
besieged  him,  as  he  went,  with  both  delight  and 
sadness. 

His  first  visit  was  for  Houston,  who  had  a 
house  on  Regent's  Terrace,  kept  for  him  in  old 
days  by  an  aunt.  The  door  was  opened  (to  his 
surprise)  upon  the  chain,  and  a  voice  asked  him 
from  within  what  he  wanted. 

"  I  want  Mr.  Houston  —  Mr.  Alan  Houston," 
said  he. 

And  who  are  ye  ?  "  said  the  voice. 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     219 

"This  is  most  extraordinary,"  thought  John; 
and  then  aloud  he  told  his  name. 

"  No  young  Mr.  John  ?  "  cried  the  voice,  with 
a  sudden  increase  of  Scotch  accent,  testifying  to 
a  friendlier  feeling. 

"  The  very  same,"  said  John. 

And  the  old  butler  removed  his  defences,  re- 
marking only,  "  I  thocht  ye  were  that  man."  But 
his  master  was  not  there;  he  was  staying,  it  ap- 
peared, at  the  house  in  Murrayfield;  and  though 
the  butler  would  have  been  glad  enough  to  have 
taken  his  place  and  given  all  the  news  of  the  family, 
John,  struck  with  a  little  chill,  was  eager  to  be 
gone.  Only,  the  door  was  scarce  closed  again, 
before  he  regretted  that  he  had  not  asked  about 
44  that  man." 

He  was  to  pay  no  more  visits  till  he  had  seen 
his  father  and  made  all  well  at  home;  Alan  had 
been  the  only  possible  exception,  and  John  had  not 
time  to  go  as  far  as  Murrayfield.  But  here  he 
was  on  Regent's  Terrace;  there  was  nothing  to 
prevent  him  going  round  the  end  of  the  hill,  and 
looking  from  without  on  the  Mackenzies'  house. 
As  he  went,  he  reflected  that  Flora  must  now 
be  a  woman  of  near  his  own  age,  and  it  was 
within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  she  was 
married ;  but  this  dishonourable  doubt  he  dammed 
down. 

There  was  the  house,  sure  enough ;  but  the  door 
was  of  another  colour,  and  what  was  this  —  two 
door  plates?  He  drew  nearer;  the  top  one  bore, 
with  dignified  simplicity,  the  words,  "  Mr.  Proud- 


220    THE     MISADVENTURES 

foot " ;  the  lower  one  was  more  explicit,  and  in- 
formed the  passer-by  that  here  was  likewise  the 
abode  of  "  Mr.  J.  A.  Dunlop  Proudfoot,  Advocate." 
The  Proudfoots  must  be  rich,  for  no  advocate 
could  look  to  have  much  business  in  so  remote  a 
quarter;  and  John  hated  them  for  their  wealth 
and  for  their  name,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  house 
they  desecrated  with  their  presence.  He  remem- 
bered a  Proudfoot  he  had  seen  at  school,  not 
known :  a  little,  whey-faced  urchin,  the  despicable 
member  of  some  lower  class.  Could  it  be  this 
abortion  that  had  climbed  to  be  an  advocate,  and 
now  lived  in  the  birthplace  of  Flora  and  the  home 
of  John's  tenderest  memories  ?  The  chill  that  had 
first  seized  upon  him  when  he  heard  of  Houston's 
absence  deepened  and  struck  inward.  For  a  mo- 
ment, as  he  stood  under  the  doors  of  that  estranged 
house,  and  looked  east  and  west  along  the  solitary 
pavement  of  the  Royal  Terrace,  where  not  a  cat 
was  stirring,  the  sense  of  solitude  and  desolation 
took  him  by  the  throat,  and  he  wished  himself  in 
San  Francisco. 

And  then  the  figure  he  made,  with  his  decent 
portliness,  his  whiskers,  the  money  in  his  purse, 
the  excellent  cigar  that  he  now  lighted,  recurred  to 
his  mind  in  consolatory  comparison  with  that  of 
a  certain  maddened  lad  who,  on  a  certain  Spring 
Sunday  ten  years  before,  and  in  the  hour  of  church- 
time  silence,  had  stolen  from  that  city  by  the  Glas- 
gow road.  In  the  face  of  these  changes,  it  were 
impious  to  doubt  fortune's  kindness.  All  would  be 
well  yet;   the  Mackenzies  would  be  found.  Flora, 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     221 

younger  and  lovelier  and  kinder  than  before ;  Alan 
would  be  found,  and  would  have  so  nicely  dis- 
criminated his  behaviour  as  to  have  grown,  on  the 
one  hand,  into  a  valued  friend  of  Mr.  Nicholson's, 
and  to  have  remained,  upon  the  other,  of  that  exact 
shade  of  joviality  which  John  desired  in  his  com- 
panions. And  so,  once  more,  John  fell  to  work 
discounting  the  delightful  future:  his  first  appear- 
ance in  the  family  pew ;  his  first  visit  to  his  uncle 
Greig,  who  thought  himself  so  great  a  financier, 
and  on  whose  purblind  Edinburgh  eyes  John  was 
to  let  in  the  dazzling  daylight  of  the  West;  and 
the  details  in  general  of  that  unrivalled  transforma- 
tion scene,  in  which  he  was  to  display  to  all  Edin- 
burgh a  portly  and  successful  gentleman  in  the 
shoes  of  the  derided  fugitive. 

The  time  began  to  draw  near  when  his  father 
would  have  returned  from  the  office,  and  it  would 
be  the  prodigal's  cue  to  enter.  He  strolled  west- 
ward by  Albany  Street,  facing  the  sunset  embers, 
pleased,  he  knew  not  why,  to  move  in  that  cold  air 
and  indigo  twilight,  starred  with  street-lamps. 
But  there  was  one  more  disenchantment  waiting 
him  by  the  way. 

At  the  corner  of  Pitt  Street  he  paused  to  light 
a  fresh  cigar;  the  vesta  threw,  as  he  did  so,  a 
strong  light  upon  his  features,  and  a  man  of  about 
his  own  age  stopped  at  sight  of  it. 

"  I  think  your  name  must  be  Nicholson,"  said 
the  stranger. 

It  was  too  late  to  avoid  recognition ;  and  besides, 
as  John  was  now  actually  on  the  way  home,  it 


222     THE     MISADVENTURES 

hardly  mattered,  and  he  gave  way  to  the  impulse 
of  his  nature. 

"Great  Scott!"  he  cried,  "Beatson!"  and 
shook  hands  with  warmth.  It  scarce  seemed  he 
was  repaid  in  kind. 

"  So  you  're  home  again  ? "  said  Beatson. 
"Where  have  you  been  all  this  long  time?" 

"  In  the  States,"  said  John  —  "  California.  I  've 
made  my  pile  though;  and  it  suddenly  struck  me 
it  would  be  a  noble  scheme  to  come  home  for 
Christmas." 

"I  see,"  said  Beatson.  "Well,  I  hope  we'll 
see  something  of  you  now  you  're  here." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  so,"  said  John,  a  little  frozen. 

"  Well,  ta-ta,"  concluded  Beatson,  and  he  shook 
hands  again  and  went. 

This  was  a  cruel  first  experience.  It  was  idle 
to  blink  facts:  here  was  John  home  again,  and 
Beatson  —  Old  Beatson  —  did  not  care  a  rush. 
He  recalled  Old  Beatson  in  the  past  —  that  merry 
and  affectionate  lad  —  and  their  joint  adventures 
and  mishaps,  the  window  they  had  broken  with 
a  catapult  in  India  Place,  the  escalade  of  the 
castle  rock,  and  many  another  inestimable  bond  of 
friendship;  and  his  hurt  surprise  grew  deeper. 
Well,  after  all,  it  was  only  on  a  man's  own  family 
that  he  could  count ;  blood  was  thicker  than  water, 
he  remembered;  and  the  net  result  of  this  en- 
counter was  to  bring  him  to  the  doorstep  of  his 
father's  house,  with  tenderer  and  softer  feelings. 
J  The  night  had  come ;  the  fanlight  over  the  door 
shone  bright;    the  two  windows  of  the  dining- 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     223 

room  where  the  cloth  was  being  laid,  and  the  three 
windows  of  the  drawing-room  where  Maria  would 
be  waiting  dinner,  glowed  softlier  through  yellow 
blinds.  It  was  like  a  vision  of  the  past.  All  this 
time  of  his  absence,  life  had  gone  forward  with  an 
equal  foot,  and  the  fires  and  the  gas  had  been 
lighted,  and  the  meals  spread,  at  the  accustomed 
hours.  At  the  accustomed  hour,  too,  the  bell  had 
sounded  thrice  to  call  the  family  to  worship.  And 
at  the  thought,  a  pang  of  regret  for  his  demerit 
seized  him;  he  remembered  the  things  that  were 
good  and  that  he  had  neglected,  and  the  things 
that  were  evil  and  that  he  had  loved;  and  it  was 
with  a  prayer  upon  his  lips  that  he  mounted  the 
steps  and  thrust  the  key  into  the  key-hole. 

He  stepped  into  the  lighted  hall,  shut  the  door 
softly  behind  him,  and  stood  there  fixed  in  wonder. 
No  surprise  of  strangeness  could  equal  the  surprise 
of  that  complete  familiarity.  There  was  the  bust 
of  Chalmers  near  the  stair-railings,  there  was  the 
clothes-brush  in  the  accustomed  place;  and  there, 
on  the  hat-stand,  hung  hats  and  coats  that  must 
surely  be  the  same  as  he  remembered.  Ten  years 
dropped  from  his  life,  as  a  pin  may  slip  between  the 
fingers ;  and  the  ocean  and  the  mountains,  and  the 
mines,  and  crowded  marts  and  mingled  races  of 
San  Francisco,  and  his  own  fortune  and  his  own 
disgrace,  became,  for  that  one  moment,  the  figures 
of  a  dream  that  was  over. 

He  took  off  his  hat,  and  moved  mechanically 
toward  the  stand;  and  there  he  found  a  small 
change  that  was  a  great  one  to  him.    The  pin  that 


224    THE     MISADVENTURES 

had  been  his  from  boyhood,  where  he  had  flung 
his  balmoral  when  he  loitered  home  from  the  acad- 
emy, and  his  first  hat  when  he  came  briskly  back 
from  college  or  the  office  —  his  pin  was  occupied. 
"  They  might  have  at  least  respected  my  pin ! "  he 
thought,  and  he  was  moved  as  by  a  slight,  and 
began  at  once  to  recollect  that  he  was  here  an  in- 
terloper, in  a  strange  house,  which  he  had  entered 
almost  by  a  burglary,  and  where  at  any  moment 
he  might  be  scandalously  challenged. 

He  moved  at  once,  his  hat  still  in  his  hand,  to 
the  door  of  his  father's  room,  opened  it,  and 
entered.  Mr.  Nicholson  sat  in  the  same  place  and 
posture  as  on  that  last  Sunday  morning;  only  he 
was  older,  and  greyer,  and  sterner;  and  as  he  now 
glanced  up  and  caught  the  eye  of  his  son,  a  strange 
commotion  and  a  dark  flush  sprung  into  his  face. 

"  Father,"  said  John,  steadily,  and  even  cheer- 
fully, for  this  was  a  moment  against  which  he  was 
long  ago  prepared,  "  father,  here  I  am,  and  here 
is  the  money  that  I  took  from  you.  I  have  come 
back  to  ask  your  forgiveness,  and  to  stay  Christ- 
mas with  you  and  the  children/' 

"  Keep  your  money,"  said  the  father,  "  and  go !  " 

"Father!"  cried  John;  "for  God's  sake  don't 
receive  me  this  way.    I  've  come  for " 

"Understand  me,"  interrupted  Mr.  Nicholson; 
"  you  are  no  son  of  mine ;  and  in  the  sight  of  God, 
I  wash  my  hands  of  you.  One  last  thing  I  will  tell 
you;  one  warning  I  will  give  you;  all  is  discov- 
ered, and  you  are  being  hunted  for  your  crimes; 
if  you  are  still  at  large  it  is  thanks  to  me;   but  I 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     225 

have  done  all  that  I  mean  to  do;  and  from  this 
time  forth  I  would  not  raise  one  finger  —  not  one 
finger  —  to  save  you  from  the  gallows!  And 
now,"  with  a  low  voice  of  absolute  authority,  and 
a  single  weighty  gesture  of  the  finger,  "  and  now 
—  go 


I" 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   HOUSE   AT   MURRAYFIELD 

HOW  John  passed  the  evening,  in  what 
windy  confusion  of  mind,  in  what  squalls 
of  anger  and  lulls  of  sick  collapse,  in  what 
pacing  of  streets  and  plunging  into  public-houses, 
it  would  profit  little  to  relate.  His  misery,  if  it 
were  not  progressive,  yet  tended  in  no  way  to 
diminish;  for  in  proportion  as  grief  and  indigna- 
tion abated,  fear  began  o  take  their  place.  At 
first,  his  father's  menacing  words  lay  by  in  some 
safe  drawer  of  memory,  biding  their  hour.  At 
first,  John  was  all  thwarted  affection  and  blighted 
hope;  next  bludgeoned  vanity  raised  its  head 
again,  with  twenty  mortal  gashes :  and  the  father 
was  disowned  even  as  he  had  disowned  the  son. 
What  was  this  regular  course  of  life,  that  John 
should  have  admired  it?  What  were  these  clock- 
work virtues,  from  which  love  was  absent?  Kind- 
ness was  the  test,  kindness  the  aim  and  soul ;  and 
judged  by  such  a  standard,  the  discarded  prodi- 
gal—  now  rapidly  drowning  his  sorrows  and  his 
reason  in  successive  drams  —  was  a  creature  of 
a  lovelier  morality  than  his  self-righteous  father. 
Yes,  he  was  the  better  man ;  he  felt  it,  glowed  with 
the  consciousness,  and  entering  a  public-house  at 


JOHN    NICHOLSON        227 

the  corner  of  Howard  Place  (whither  he  had  some- 
how wandered)  he  pledged  his  own  virtues  in  a 
glass  —  perhaps  the  fourth  since  his  dismissal. 
Of  that  he  knew  nothing,  keeping  no  account  of 
what  he  did  or  where  he  went ;  and  in  the  general 
crashing  hurry  of  his  nerves,  unconscious  of  the 
approach  of  intoxication.  Indeed,  it  is  a  question 
whether  he  were  really  growing  intoxicated,  or 
whether  at  first  the  spirits  did  not  even  sober  him. 
For  it  was  even  as  he  drained  this  last  glass  that  his 
father's  ambiguous  and  menacing  words  —  pop- 
ping from  their  hiding-place  in  memory  —  startled 
him  like  a  hand  laid  upon  his  shoulder.  "  Crimes, 
hunted,  the  gallows."  They  were  ugly  words ;  in 
the  ears  of  an  innocent  man,  perhaps  all  the  uglier ; 
for  if  some  judicial  error  were  in  act  against  him, 
who  should  set  a  limit  to  its  grossness  or  to  how 
far  it  might  be  pushed  ?  Not  John,  indeed ;  he  was 
no  believer  in  the  powers  of  innocence,  his  cursed 
experience  pointing  in  quite  other  ways;  and  his 
fears,  once  wakened,  grew  with  every  hour  and 
hunted  him  about  the  city  streets. 

It  was,  perhaps,  nearly  nine  at  night;  he  had 
eaten  nothing  since  lunch,  he  had  drunk  a  good 
deal,  and  he  was  exhausted  by  emotion,  when  the 
thought  of  Houston  came  into  his  head.  He 
turned,  not  merely  to  the  man  as  a  friend,  but  to 
his  house  as  a  place  of  refuge.  The  danger  that 
threatened  him  was  still  so  vague  that  he  knew 
neither  what  to  fear  nor  where  he  might  expect  it ; 
but  this  much  at  least  seemed  undeniable,  that 
a   private   house   was   safer   than    a   public   inn. 


228     THE     MISADVENTURES 

Moved  by  these  counsels,  he  turned  at  once  to  the 
Caledonian  Station,  passed  (not  without  alarm) 
into  the  bright  lights  of  the  approach,  redeemed 
his  portmanteau  from  the  cloak-room,  and  was 
soon  whirling  in  a  cab  along  the  Glasgow  road. 
The  change  of  movement  and  position,  the  sight 
of  the  lamps  twinkling  to  the  rear,  and  the  smell 
of  damp  and  mould  and  rotten  straw-  which  clung 
about  the  vehicle,  wrought  in  him  strange  alterna- 
tions of  lucidity  and  mortal  giddiness. 

"  I  have  been  drinking,"  he  discovered ;  "  I  must 
go  straight  to  bed,  and  sleep."  And  he  thanked 
Heaven  for  the  drowsiness  that  came  upon  his 
mind  in  waves. 

From  one  of  these  sp«Ils  he  was  wakened  by 
the  stoppage  of  the  cab ;  and,  getting  down,  found 
himself  in  quite  a  country  road,  the  last  lamp  of 
the  suburb  shining  some  way  below,  and  the  high 
walls  of  a  garden  rising  before  him  in  the  dark. 
The  Lodge  (as  the  place  was  named)  stood,  in- 
deed, very  solitary.  To  the  south  it  adjoined  an- 
other house,  but  standing  in  so  large  a  garden  as 
to  be  well  out  of  cry ;  on  all  other  sides,  open  fields 
stretched  upward  to  the  woods  of  Corstorphine 
Hill,  or  backward  to  the  dells  of  Ravelston,  or 
downward  toward  the  valley  of  the  Leith.  The 
effect  of  seclusion  was  aided  by  the  great  height  of 
the  garden  walls,  which  were,  indeed,  conventual, 
and,  as  John  had  tested  in  former  days,  defied  the 
climbing  school-boy.  The  lamp  of  the  cab  threw 
a  gleam  upon  the  door  and  the  not  brilliant  handle 
of  the  bell. 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     229 

"Shall  I  ring  for  ye?"  said  the  cabman,  who 
had  descended  from  his  perch  and  was  slapping 
his  chest,  for  the  night  was  bitter. 

"  I  wish  you  would,"  said  John,  putting  his  hand 
to  his  brow  in  one  of  his  accesses  of  giddiness. 

The  man  pulled  at  the  handle,  and  the  clanking 
of  the  bell  replied  from  further  in  the  garden; 
twice  and  thrice  he  did  it,  with  sufficient  intervals ; 
in  the  great,  frosty  silence  of  the  night,  the  sounds 
fell  sharp  and  small. 

"Does  he  expect  ye?"  asked  the  driver,  with 
that  manner  of  familiar  interest  that  well  became 
his  port-wine  face;  and  when  John  had  told  him 
no,  "  Well,  then,"  said  the  cabman,  "  if  ye  '11  tak' 
my  advice  of  it,  we  '11  just  gang  back.  And  that 's 
disinterested,  mind  ye,  for  my  stables  are  in  the 
Glesgie  road." 

"  The  servants  must  hear,"  said  John. 

"  Hout !  "  said  the  driver.  "  He  keeps  no  ser- 
vants here,  man.  They  're  2!  in  the  town  house ; 
I  drive  him  often ;  it 's  just  a  kind  of  a  hermitage, 
this." 

"  Give  me  the  bell,"  said  John ;  and  he  plucked 
at  it  like  a  man  desperate. 

The  clamour  had  not  yet  subsided  before  they 
heard  steps  upon  the  gravel,  and  a  voice  of  sin- 
gular nervous  irritability  cried  to  them  through 
the  door,  "  Who  are  you,  and  what  do  you 
want?" 

"Alan,"  said  John,  "it's  me  — it's  Fatty  — 
John,  you  know.  I  'm  just  come  home,  and  I  Ve 
come  to  stay  with  you." 


230    THE    MISADVENTURES 

There  was  no  reply  for  a  moment,  and  then  the 
door  was  opened. 

"  Get  the  portmanteau  down,"  said  John  to  the 
driver. 

"  Do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  Alan ;  and  then 
to  John,  "  Come  in  here  a  moment.  I  want  to 
speak  to  you." 

y  John  entered  the  garden,  and  the  door  was  closed 
behind  him.  A  candle  stood  on  the  gravel  walk, 
winking  a  little  in  the  draughts;  it  threw  incon- 
stant sparkles  on  the  clumped  holly,  struck  the 
light  and  darkness  to  and  fro  like  a  veil  on  Alan's 
features,  and  sent  his  shadow  hovering  behind 
him.  All  beyond  was  inscrutable;  and  John's 
dizzy  brain  rocked  with  the  shadow.  Yet  even 
so,  it  struck  him  that  Alan  was  pale>  and  his  voice, 
when  he  spoke,  unnatural. 

"  What  brings  you  here  to-night  ?  "  he  began. 
"  I  don't  want,  God  knows,  to  seem  unfriendly ; 
but  I  cannot  take  you  in,  Nicholson;  I  cannot 
do  it." 

"Alan,"  said  John,  "you've  just  got  to!  You 
don't  know  the  mess  I  'm  in ;  the  governor  's  turned 
me  out,  and  I  dare  n't  show  my  face  in  an  inn, 
because  they  're  down  on  me  for  murder  or  some- 
thing!" 

"  For  what  ?  "  cried  Alan,  starting. 

"  Murder,  I  believe,"  says  John. 

"  Murder !  "  repeated  Alan,  and  passed  his  hand 
over  his  eyes.  "  What  was  that  you  were  saying?  " 
he  asked  again. 

"  That   they   were   down   on   me,"    said  John. 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     231 

"  I  'm  accused  of  murder,  by  what  I  can  make  out ; 
and  I  've  really  had  a  dreadful  day  of  it,  Alan,  and 
I  can't  sleep  on  the  roadside  on  a  night  like  this  — 
at  least  not  with  a  portmanteau,"  he  pleaded. 

"  Hush! "  said  Alan,  with  his  head  on  one  side; 
and  then,  "  Did  you  hear  nothing?  "  he  asked. 

"  No,"  said  John,  thrilling,  he  knew  not  why, 
with  communicated  terror.  "  No,  I  heard  noth- 
ing; why?"  And  then,  as  there  was  no  answer, 
he  reverted  to  his  pleading :  "  But  I  say,  Alan, 
you  Ve  just  got  to  take  me  in.  I  '11  go  right  away 
to  bed  if  you  have  anything  to  do.  I  seem  to 
have  been  drinking;  I  was  that  knocked  over.  I 
would  n't  turn  you  away,  Alan,  if  you  were  down 
on  your  luck." 

"  No  ?  "  returned  Alan.  "  Neither  will  I  you, 
then.     Come  and  let 's  get  your  portmanteau." 

The  cabman  was  paid,  and  drove  off  down  the 
long,  lamp-lighted  hill,  and  the  two  friends  stood 
on  the  sidewalk  beside  the  portmanteau  till  the 
last  rumble  of  the  wheels  had  died  in  silence.  It 
seemed  to  John  as  though  Alan  attached  impor- 
tance to  this  departure  of  the  cab ;  and  John,  who 
was  in  no  state  to  criticise,  shared  profoundly  in 
the  feeling. 

When  the  stillness  was  once  more  perfect,  Alan 
shouldered  the  portmanteau,  carried  it  in,  and  shut 
and  locked  the  garden  door ;  and  then,  once  more, 
abstraction  seemed  to  fall  upon  him,  and  he  stood 
with  his  hand  on  the  key,  until  the  cold  began  to 
nibble  at  John's  ringers. 

"  Why  are  we  standing  here  ?  "  asked  John. 


232    THE    MISADVENTURES 

"Eh?"  said  Alan,  blankly. 

"  Why,  man,  you  don't  seem  yourself,"  said  the 
other. 

"  No,  I  'm  not  myself,"  said  Alan ;  and  he  sat 
down  on  the  portmanteau  and  put  his  face  in  his 
hands. 

John  stood  beside  him  swaying  a  little,  and  look- 
ing about  him  at  the  swaying  shadows,  the  flitting 
sparkles,  and  the  steady  stars  overhead,  until  the 
windless  cold  began  to  touch  him  through  his 
clothes  on  the  bare  skin.  Even  in  his  bemused 
intelligence,  wonder  began  to  awake. 

"  I  say,  let  's  come  on  to  the  house,"  he  said  at 
last. 

"  Yes,  let 's  come  on  to  the  house,"  repeated 
Alan. 

And  he  rose  at  once,  reshouldered  the  portman- 
teau, and  taking  the  candle  in  his  other  hand, 
moved  forward  to  the  Lodge.  This  was  a  long, 
low  building,  smothered  in  creepers;  and  now, 
except  for  some  chinks  of  light  between  the  dining- 
room  shutters,  it  was  plunged  in  darkness  and 
silence. 

In  the  hall  Alan  lighted  another  candle,  gave  it 
to  John,  and  opened  the  door  of  a  bedroom. 

"  Here,"  said  he;  "  go  to  bed.  Don't  mind  me, 
John.    You  '11  be  sorry  for  me  when  you  know." 

"  Wait  a  bit,"  returned  John ;  "  I  've  got  so  cold 
with  all  that  standing  about.  Let 's  go  into  the 
dining-room  a  minute.  Just  one  glass  to  warm 
me,  Alan." 

On  the  table  in  the  hall  stood  a  glass,  and  a 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     233 

bottle  with  a  whisky  label  on  a  tray.  It  was  plain 
the  bottle  had  been  just  opened,  for  the  cork  and 
corkscrew  lay  beside  it. 

"Take  that,"  said  Alan,  passing  John  the 
whisky,  and  then  with  a  certain  roughness  pushed 
his  friend  into  the  bedroom,  and  closed  the  door 
behind  him. 

John  stood  amazed;  then  he  shook  the  bottle, 
and,  to  his  further  wonder,  found  it  partly  empty. 
Three  or  four  glasses  were  gone.  Alan  must  have 
uncorked  a  bottle  of  whisky  and  drank  three  or 
four  glasses  one  after  the  other,  without  sitting 
down,  for  there  was  no  chair,  and  that  in  his  own 
cold  lobby  on  this  freezing  night!  It  fully  ex- 
plained his  eccentricities,  John  reflected  sagely,  as 
he  mixed  himself  a  grog.  Poor  Alan!  He  was 
drunk;  and  what  a  dreadful  thing  was  drink, 
and  what  a  slave  to  it  poor  Alan  was,  to  drink 
in  this  unsociable,  uncomfortable  fashion!  The 
man  who  would  drink  alone,  except  for  health's 
sake  —  as  John  was  now  doing  —  was  a  man 
utterly  lost.  He  took  the  grog  out,  and  felt  hazier, 
but  warmer.  It  was  hard  work  opening  the  port- 
manteau and  finding  his  night  things ;  and  before 
he  was  undressed,  the  cold  had  struck  home  to  him 
once  more.  "  Well,"  said  he ;  "  just  a  drop  more. 
There  's  no  sense  in  getting  ill  with  all  this  other 
trouble."  And  presently  dreamless  slumber  buried 
him. 

When  John  awoke  it  was  day.  The  low  winter 
sun  was  already  in  the  heavens,  but  his  watch 
had  stopped,  and  it  was  impossible  to  tell  the  hour 


234     THE    MISADVENTURES 

exactly.  Ten,  he  guessed  it,  and  made  haste  to 
dress,  dismal  reflections  crowding  on  his  mind. 
But  it  was  less  from  terror  than  from  regret  that 
he  now  suffered;  and  with  his  regret  there  were 
mingled  cutting  pangs  of  penitence.  There  had 
fallen  upon  him  a  blow,  cruel,  indeed,  but  yet  only 
the  punishment  of  old  misdoing;  and  he  had  re- 
belled and  plunged  into  fresh  sin.  The  rod  had 
been  used  to  chasten,  and  he  had  bit  the  chastening 
fingers.  His  father  was  right ;  John  had  justified 
him ;  John  was  no  guest  for  decent  people's  houses, 
and  no  fit  associate  for  decent  people's  children. 
And  had  a  broader  hint  been  needed,  there  was  the 
case  of  his  old  friend.  John  was  no  drunkard, 
though  he  could  at  times  exceed;  and  the  picture 
of  Houston  drinking  neat  spirits  at  his  hall-table 
struck  him  with  something  like  disgust.  He  hung 
back  from  meeting  his  old  friend.  He  could  have 
wished  he  had  not  come  to  him ;  and  yet,  even  now, 
where  else  was  he  to  turn  ? 

These  musings  occupied  him  while  he  dressed, 
and  accompanied  him  into  the  lobby  of  the  house. 
The  door  stood  open  on  the  garden;  doubtless, 
Alan  had  stepped  forth;  and  John  did  as  he  sup- 
posed his  friend  had  done.  The  ground  was  hard 
as  iron,  the  frost  still  rigorous;  as  he  brushed 
among  the  hollies,  icicles  jingled  and  glittered  in 
their  fall ;  and  wherever  he  went,  a  volley  of  eager 
sparrows  followed  him.  Here  were  Christmas 
weather  and  Christmas  morning  duly  met,  to  the 
delight  of  children.  This  was  the  day  of  reunited 
families,  the  day  to  which  he  had  so  long  looked 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     235 

forward,  thinking  to  awake  in  his  own  bed  in 
Randolph  Crescent,  reconciled  with  all  men  and 
repeating  the  foot-prints  of  his  youth;  and  here 
he  was  alone,  pacing  the  alleys  of  a  wintery  garden 
and  filled  with  penitential  thoughts. 

And  that  reminded  him :  why  was  he  alone  ?  and 
where  was  Alan  ?  The  thought  of  the  festal  morn- 
ing and  the  due  salutations  reawakened  his  desire 
for  his  friend,  and  he  began  to  call  for  him  by  name. 
As  the  sound  of  his  voice  died  away,  he  was  aware 
of  the  greatness  of  the  silence  that  environed  him. 
But  for  the  twittering  of  the  sparrows  and  the 
crunching  of  his  own  feet  upon  the  frozen  snow, 
the  whole  windless  world  of  air  hung  over  him 
entranced,  and  the  stillness  weighed  upon  his  mind 
with  a  horror  of  solitude. 

Still  calling  at  intervals,  but  now  with  a  moder- 
ated voice,  he  made  the  hasty  circuit  of  the  garden, 
and  finding  neither  man  nor  trace  of  man  in  all 
its  evergreen  coverts,  turned  at  last  to  the  house. 
About  the  house  the  silence  seemed  to  deepen 
strangely.  The  door,  indeed,  stood  open  as  before ; 
but  the  windows  were  still  shuttered,  the  chimneys 
breathed  no  stain  into  the  bright  air,  there  sounded 
abroad  none  of  that  low  stir  (perhaps  audible  rather 
to  the  ear  of  the  spirit  than  to  the  ear  of  the  flesh) 
by  which  a  house  announces  and  betrays  its  human 
lodgers.  And  yet  Alan  must  be  there  —  Alan 
locked  in  drunken  slumbers,  forgetful  of  the  re- 
turn of  day,  of  the  holy  season,  and  of  the  friend 
whom  he  had  so  coldly  received  and  was  now  so 
churlishly  neglecting.     John's   disgust   redoubled 


236     THE     MISADVENTURES 

at  the  thought ;  but  hunger  was  beginning  to  grow 
stronger  than  repulsion,  and  as  a  step  to  break- 
fast, if  nothing  else,  he  must  find  and  arouse  this 
sleeper. 

He  made  the  circuit  of  the  bedroom  quarters. 
All,  until  he  came  to  Alan's  chamber,  were  locked 
from  without,  and  bore  the  marks  of  a  prolonged 
disuse.  But  Alan's  was  a  room  in  commission, 
filled  with  clothes,  knickknacks,  letters,  books,  and 
the  conveniences  of  a  solitary  man.  The  fire  had 
been  lighted ;  but  it  had  long  ago  burned  out,  and 
the  ashes  were  stone  cold.  The  bed  had  been  made, 
but  it  had  not  been  slept  in. 

Worse  and  worse,  then ;  Alan  must  have  fallen 
where  he  sat,  and  now  sprawled  brutishly,  no 
doubt,   upon  the  dining-room  floor. 

The  dining-room  was  a  very  long  apartment, 
and  was  reached  through  a  passage ;  so  that  John, 
upon  his  entrance,  brought  but  little  light  with 
him,  and  must  move  toward  the  windows  with 
spread  arms,  groping  and  knocking  on  the  furni- 
ture. Suddenly  he  tripped  and  fell  his  length  over 
a  prostrate  body.  It  was  what  he  had  looked  for, 
yet  it  shocked  him ;  and  he  marvelled  that  so  rough 
an  impact  should  not  have  kicked  a  groan  out  of  the 
drunkard.  Men  had  killed  themselves  ere  now  in 
such  excesses,  a  dreary  and  degraded  end  that  made 
John  shudder.  What  if  Alan  were  dead?  There 
would  be  a  Christmas-day! 

By  this,  John  had  his  hand  upon  the  shutters, 
and  flinging  them  back,  beheld  once  again  the 
blessed  face  of  the  day.     Even  by  that  light  the 


OF     JOHN    NICHOLSON     237 

room  had  a  discomfortable  air.  The  chairs  were 
scattered,  and  one  had  been  overthrown ;  the  table- 
cloth, laid  as  if  for  dinner,  was  twitched  upon  one 
side,  and  some  of  the  dishes  had  fallen  to  the  floor. 
Behind  the  table  lay  the  drunkard,  still  unaroused, 
only  one  foot  visible  to  John. 

But  now  that  light  was  in  the  room,  the  worst 
seemed  over;  it  was  a  disgusting  business,  but 
not  more  than  disgusting;  and  it  was  with  no 
great  apprehension  that  John  proceeded  to  make 
the  circuit  of  the  table:  his  last  comparatively 
tranquil  moment  for  that  day.  No  sooner  had  he 
turned  the  corner,  no  sooner  had  his  eyes  alighted 
on  the  body,  than  he  gave  a  smothered,  breathless 
cry,  and  fled  out  of  the  room  and  out  of  the  house. 

It  was  not  Alan  who  lay  there,  but  a  man  well 
up  in  years,  of  stern  countenance  and  iron-grey 
locks;  and  it  was  no  drunkard,  for  the  body  lay 
in  a  black  pool  of  blood,  and  the  open  eyes  stared 
upon  the  ceiling. 

To  and  fro  walked  John  before  the  door.  The 
extreme  sharpness  of  the  air  acted  on  his  nerves 
like  an  astringent,  and  braced  them  swiftly.  Pres- 
ently, he  not  relaxing  in  his  disordered  walk,  the 
images  began  to  come  clearer  and  stay  longer  in 
his  fancy;  and  next  the  power  of  thought  came 
back  to  him,  and  the  horror  and  danger  of  his 
situation  rooted  him  to  the  ground. 

He  grasped  his  forehead,  and  staring  on  one 
spot  of  gravel,  pieced  together  what  he  knew  and 
what  he  suspected.  Alan  had  murdered  some  one : 
possibly   "  that  man "   against  whom  the  butler 


238     THE    MISADVENTURES 

chained  the  door  in  Regent's  Terrace;  possibly 
another;  some  one  at  least:  a  human  soul,  whom 
it  was  death  to  slay  and  whose  blood  lay  spilled 
upon  the  floor.  This  was  the  reason  of  the  whisky 
drinking  in  the  passage,  of  his  unwillingness  to 
welcome  John,  of  his  strange  behaviour  and  be- 
wildered words;  this  was  why  he  had  started  at 
and  harped  upon  the  name  of  murder;  this  was 
why  he  had  stood  and  hearkened,  or  sat  and  cov- 
ered his  eyes,  in  the  black  night.  And  now  he  was 
gone,  now  he  had  basely  fled;  and  to  all  his  per- 
plexities and  dangers  John  stood  heir. 

"  Let  me  think  —  let  me  think,"  he  said,  aloud, 
impatiently,  even  pleadingly,  as  if  to  some  merci- 
less interrupter.  In  the  turmoil  of  his  wits,  a 
thousand  hints  and  hopes  and  threats  and  terrors 
dinning  continuously  in  his  ears,  he  was  like  one 
plunged  in  the  hubbub  of  a  crowd.  How  was  he 
to  remember  —  he,  who  had  not  a  thought  to  spare 
—  that  he  was  himself  the  author,  as  well  as  the 
theatre,  of  so  much  confusion?  But  in  hours  of 
trial  the  junto  of  man's  nature  is  dissolved,  and 
anarchy  succeeds. 

It  was  plain  he  must  stay  no  longer  where  he 
was,  for  here  was  a  new  Judicial  Error  in  the  very 
making.  It  was  not  so  plain  where  he  must  go, 
for  the  old  Judicial  Error,  vague  as  a  cloud,  ap- 
peared to  fill  the  habitable  world;  whatever  it 
might  be,  it  watched  for  him,  full  grown,  in  Edin- 
burgh; it  must  have  had  its  birth  in  San  Fran- 
cisco; it  stood  guard  no  doubt,  like  a  dragon,  at 
the  bank  where  he  should  cash  his  credit;    and 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     239 

though  there  were  doubtless  many  other  places, 
who  should  say  in  which  of  them  it  was  not  am- 
bushed ?  No,  he  could  not  tell  where  he  was  to  go ; 
he  must  not  lose  time  on  these  insolubilities.  Let 
him  go  back  to  the  beginning.  It  was  plain  he 
must  stay  no  longer  where  he  was.  It  was  plain, 
too,  that  he  must  not  flee  as  he  was,  for  he  could 
not  carry  his  portmanteau,  and  to  flee  and  leave  it, 
was  to  plunge  deeper  in  the  mire.  He  must  go, 
leave  the  house  unguarded,  find  a  cab,  and  return 
—  return  after  an  absence?  Had  he  courage  for 
that? 

And  just  then  he  spied  a  stain  about  a  hand's 
breadth  on  his  trouser-leg,  and  reached  his  finger 
down  to  touch  it.  The  finger  was  stained  red; 
it  was  blood;  he  stared  upon  it  with  disgust,  and 
awe,  and  terror,  and  in  the  sharpness  of  the  new 
sensation,  fell  instantly  to  act. 

He  cleansed  his  finger  in  the  snow,  returned  into 
the  house,  drew  near  with  hushed  footsteps  to  the 
dining-room  door,  and  shut  and  locked  it.  Then 
he  breathed  a  little  freer,  for  here  at  least  was  an 
oaken  barrier  between  himself  and  what  he  feared. 
Next,  he  hastened  to  his  room,  tore  off  the  spotted 
trousers  which  seemed  in  his  eyes  a  link  to  bind  him 
to  the  gallows,  flung  them  in  a  corner,  donned 
another  pair,  breathlessly  crammed  his  night  things 
into  his  portmanteau,  locked  it,  swung  it  with  an 
effort  from  the  ground,  and  with  a  rush  of  relief, 
came  forth  again  under  the  open  heavens. 

The  portmanteau,  being  of  occidental  build,  was 
no  feather-weight;  it  had  distressed  the  powerful 


24o    THE    MISADVENTURES 

Alan;  and  as  for  John,  he  was  crushed  under  its 
bulk,  and  the  sweat  broke  upon  him  thickly. 
Twice  he  must  set  it  down  to  rest  before  he  reached 
the  gate;  and  when  he  had  come  so  far,  he  must 
do  as  Alan  did,  and  take  his  seat  upon  one  corner. 
Here,  then,  he  sat  awhile  and  panted ;  but  now  his 
thoughts  were  sensibly  lightened;  now,  with  the 
trunk  standing  just  inside  the  door,  some  part  of 
his  dissociation  from  the  house  of  crime  had  been 
effected,  and  the  cabman  need  not  pass  the  garden 
wall.  It  was  wonderful  how  that  relieved  him ;  for 
the  house,  in  his  eyes,  was  a  place  to  strike  the 
most  cursory  beholder  with  suspicion,  as  though 
the  very  windows  had  cried  murder. 

But  there  was  to  be  no  remission  of  the  strokes 
of  fate.  As  he  thus  sat,  taking  breath  in  the  shadow 
of  the  wall  and  hopped  about  by  sparrows,  it 
chanced  that  his  eye  roved  to  the  fastening  of  the 
door;  and  what  he  saw  plucked  him  to  his  feet. 
The  thing  locked  with  a  spring ;  once  the  door  was 
closed,  the  bolt  shut  of  itself;  and  without  a  key, 
there  was  no  means  of  entering  from  without. 

He  saw  himself  obliged  to  one  of  two  distaste- 
ful and  perilous  alternatives;  either  to  shut  the 
door  altogether  and  set  his  portmanteau  out  upon 
the  wayside,  a  wonder  to  all  beholders ;  or  to  leave 
the  door  ajar,  so  that  any  thievish  tramp  or  holiday 
school-boy  might  stray  in  and  stumble  on  the  grisly 
secret.  To  the  last,  as  the  least  desperate,  his  mind 
inclined;  but  he  must  first  insure  himself  that  he 
was  unobserved.  He  peered  out,  and  down  the 
long  road:    it  lay  dead  empty.     He  went  to  the 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     241 

corner  of  the  by-road  that  comes  by  way  of  Dean ; 
there  also  not  a  passenger  was  stirring.  Plainly 
it  was,  now  or  never,  the  high  tide  of  his  affairs ; 
and  he  drew  the  door  as  close  as  he  durst,  slipped 
a  pebble  in  the  chink,  and  made  off  down-hill  to 
find  a  cab. 

Half-way  down  a  gate  opened,  and  a  troop  of 
Christmas  children  sallied  forth  in  the  most  cheer- 
ful humour,  followed  more  soberly  by  a  smiling 
mother. 

"  And  this  is  Christmas-day !  "  thought  John ; 
and  could  have  laughed  aloud  in  tragic  bitterness 
of  heart. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A   TRAGI-COMEDY   IN  A   CAB 

IN  front  of  Donaldson's  Hospital  John  counted 
it  good  fortune  to  perceive  a  cab  a  great  way 
off,  and  by  much  shouting  and  waving  of  his 
arm  to  catch  the  notice  of  the  driver.  He  counted 
it  good  fortune,  for  the  time  was  long  to  him  till  he 
should  have  done  for  ever  with  the  Lodge ;  and  the 
further  he  must  go  to  find  a  cab,  the  greater  the 
chance  that  the  inevitable  discovery  had  taken  place, 
and  that  he  should  return  to  find  the  garden  full  of 
angry  neighbours.  Yet  when  the  vehicle  drew  up 
he  was  sensibly  chagrined  to  recognise  the  port-wine 
cabman  of  the  night  before.  "  Here,"  he  could  not 
but  reflect,  "  here  is  another  link  in  the  Judicial 
Error." 

The  driver,  on  the  other  hand,  was  pleased  to 
drop  again  upon  so  liberal  a  fare ;  and  as  he  was  a 
man  —  the  reader  must  already  have  perceived  — 
of  easy,  not  to  say  familiar,  manners,  he  dropped 
at  once  into  a  vein  of  friendly  talk,  commenting  on 
the  weather,  on  the  sacred  season,  which  struck 
him  chiefly  in  the  light  of  a  day  of  liberal  gratui- 
ties, on  the  chance  which  had  reunited  him  to  a 
pleasing  customer,  and  on  the  fact  that  John  had 


JOHN    NICHOLSON       243 

been  (as  he  was  pleased  to  call  it)  visibly  "  on 
the  randan  "  the  night  before. 

"  And  ye  look  dreidful  bad  the-day,  sir,  I  must 
say  that,"  he  continued.  "  There  's  nothing  like 
a  dram  for  ye  —  if  ye  '11  take  my  advice  of  it ; 
and  bein'  as  it 's  Christmas,  I  'm  no  saying,"  he 
added,  with  a  fatherly  smile,  "  but  what  I  would 
join  ye  mysel'." 

John  had  listened  with  a  sick  heart. 

"  I  '11  give  you  a  dram  when  we  've  got  through," 
said  he,  affecting  a  sprightliness  which  sat  on  him 
most  unhandsomely,  "  and  not  a  drop  till  then. 
Business  first,  and  pleasure  afterward." 

With  this  promise  the  jarvey  was  prevailed  upon 
to  clamber  to  his  place  and  drive,  with  hideous 
deliberation,  to  the  door  of  the  Lodge.  There  were 
no  signs  as  yet  of  any  public  emotion;  only,  two 
men  stood  not  far  off  in  talk,  and  their  presence, 
seen  from  afar,  set  John's  pulses  buzzing.  He 
might  have  spared  himself  his  fright,  for  the  pair 
were  lost  in  some  dispute  of  a  theological  complex- 
ion, and  with  lengthened  upper  lip  and  enumerat- 
ing fingers,  pursued  the  matter  of  their  difference, 
and  paid  no  heed  to  John. 

But  the  cabman  proved  a  thorn  in  the  flesh. 
Nothing  would  keep  him  on  his  perch;  he  must 
clamber  down,  comment  upon  the  pebble  in  the 
door  (which  he  regarded  as  an  ingenious  but  un- 
safe device),  help  John  with  the  portmanteau,  and 
enliven  matters  with  a  flow  of  speech,  and  espe- 
cially of  questions,  which  I  thus  condense: 

"He'll   no   be   here   himser,    will   he?     No? 


244    THE    MISADVENTURES 

Well,  he  's  an  eccentric  man  —  a  fair  oddity  —  if 
ye  ken  the  expression.  Great  trouble  with  his 
tenants,  they  tell  me.  I  ve  driven  the  fam'ly  for 
years.  I  drove  a  cab  at  his  father's  waddin'. 
What  '11  your  name  be  ?  —  I  should  ken  your  face. 
Baigrey,  ye  say?  There  were  Baigreys  about  Gil- 
merton;  ye '11  be  one  of  that  lot?  Then  this '11 
be  a  friend's  portmantie,  like  ?  Why  ?  Because  the 
name  upon  it 's  Nucholson !  Oh,  if  ye  're  in  a 
hurry,  that's  another  job.  Waverley  Brig'?  Are 
ye  for  away  ?  " 

So  the  friendly  toper  prated  and  questioned  and 
kept  John's  heart  in  a  flutter.  But  to  this  also, 
as  to  other  evils  under  the  sun,  there  came  a  period ; 
and  the  victim  of  circumstances  began  at  last  to 
rumble  toward  the  railway  terminus  at  Waverley 
Bridge.  During  the  transit,  he  sat  with  raised 
glasses  in  the  frosty  chill  and  mouldy  fetor  of  his 
chariot,  and  glanced  out  sidelong  on  the  holiday 
face  of  things,  the  shuttered  shops,  and  the  crowds 
along  the  pavement,  much  as  the  rider  in  the  Ty- 
burn cart  may  have  observed  the  concourse  gather- 
ing to  his  execution. 

At  the  station  his  spirits  rose  again;  another 
stage  of  his  escape  was  fortunately  ended  —  he 
began  to  spy  blue  water.  He  called  a  railway 
porter,  and  bade  him  carry  the  portmanteau  to  the 
cloak-room :  not  that  he  had  any  notion  of  delay  j 
flight,  instant  flight  was  his  design,  no  matter 
whither ;  but  he  had  determined  to  dismiss  the  cab- 
man ere  he  named,  or  even  chose,  his  destination, 
thus  possibly  balking  the  Judicial  Error  of  another 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     245 

link.  This  was  his  cunning  aim,  and  now  with 
one  foot  on  the  road-way,  and  one  still  on  the 
coach-step,  he  made  haste  to  put  the  thing  in  prac- 
tice, and  plunged  his  hand  into  his  trousers  pocket. 

There  was  nothing  there! 

Oh,  yes ;  this  time  he  was  to  blame.  He  should 
have  remembered,  and  when  he  deserted  his  blood- 
stained pantaloons,  he  should  not  have  deserted 
along  with  them  his  purse.  Make  the  most  of 
his  error,  and  then  compare  it  with  the  punishment ! 
Conceive  his  new  position,  for  I  lack  words  to 
picture  it;  conceive  him  condemned  to  return  to 
that  house,  from  the  very  thought  of  which  his 
soul  revolted,  and  once  more  to  expose  himself  to 
capture  on  the  very  scene  of  the  misdeed :  conceive 
him  linked  to  the  mouldy  cab  and  the  familiar  cab- 
man. John  cursed  the  cabman  silently,  and  then 
it  occurred  to  him  that  he  must  stop  the  incarcera- 
tion of  his  portmanteau;  that,  at  least,  he  must 
keep  close  at  hand,  and  he  turned  to  recall  the 
porter.  But  his  reflections,  brief  as  they  had  ap- 
peared, must  have  occupied  him  longer  than  he 
supposed,  and  there  was  the  man  already  return- 
ing with  the  receipt. 

Well,  that  was  settled ;  he  had  lost  his  portman- 
teau also ;  for  the  sixpence  with  which  he  had  paid 
the  Murrayfield  Toll  was  one  that  had  strayed 
alone  into  his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  unless  he  once 
more  successfully  achieved  the  adventure  of  the 
house  of  crime,  his  portmanteau  lay  in  the  cloak- 
room in  eternal  pawn,  for  lack  of  a  penny  fee. 
And  then  he  remembered  the  porter,  who  stood 


246     THE    MISADVENTURES 

suggestively  attentive,  words  of  gratitude  hanging 
on  his  lips. 

John  hunted  right  and  left ;  he  found  a  coin  — 
prayed  God  that  it  was  a  sovereign  —  drew  it  out, 
beheld  a  halfpenny,  and  offered  it  to  the  porter. 

The  man's  jaw  dropped. 

"  It 's  only  a  halfpenny ! "  he  said,  startled  out 
of  railway  decency. 

"  I  know  that,"  said  John,  piteously. 

And  here  the  porter  recovered  the  dignity  of 
man. 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  he,  and  would  have  re- 
turned the  base  gratuity.  But  John,  too,  would 
none  of  it;  and  as  they  struggled,  who  must  join 
in  but  the  cabman? 

"  Hoots,  Mr.  Baigrey,"  said  he,  "  you  surely 
forget  what  day  it  is ! " 

"  I  tell  you  I  have  no  change !  "  cried  John. 

"Well,"  said  the  driver,  "and  what  then?  I 
would  rather  give  a  man  a  shillin'  on  a  day  like 
this  than  put  him  off  with  a  derision  like  a  baw- 
bee. I  'm  surprised  at  the  like  of  you,  Mr. 
Baigrey ! " 

"  My  name  is  not  Baigrey ! "  broke  out  John, 
in  mere  childish  temper  and  distress. 

"  Ye  told  me  it  was  yoursel',"  said  the  cabman. 

"  I  know  I  did ;  and  what  the  devil  right  had  you 
to  ask  ?  "  cried  the  unhappy  one. 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  said  the  driver.  "  I  know 
my  place,  if  you  know  yours  —  if  you  know 
yours!"  he  repeated,  as  one  who  should  imply 
grave  doubt;   and  muttered  inarticulate  thunders, 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     24y 

in  which  the  grand  old  name  of  gentleman  was 
taken  seemingly  in  vain.  j 

Oh,  to  have  been  able  to  discharge  this  monster,  ^ 
whom  John  now  perceived,  with  tardy  clear- 
sightedness, to  have  begun  betimes  the  festivities 
of  Christmas !  But  far  from  any  such  ray  of  con- 
solation visiting  the  lost,  he  stood  bare  of  help  and 
helpers,  his  portmanteau  sequestered  in  one  place, 
his  money  deserted  in  another  and  guarded  by  a 
corpse;  himself,  so  sedulous  of  privacy,  the  cyno- 
sure of  all  men's  eyes  about  the  station;  and,  as 
if  these  were  not  enough  mischances,  he  was  now 
fallen  in  ill-blood  with  the  beast  to  whom  his 
poverty  had  linked  him!  In  ill-blood,  as  he  re- 
flected dismally,  with  the  witness  who  perhaps 
might  hang  or  save  him !  There  was  no  time  to  be 
lost;  he  durst  not  linger  any  longer  in  that  public 
spot;  and  whether  he  had  recourse  to  dignity  or 
conciliation,  the  remedy  must  be  applied  at  once. 
Some  happily  surviving  element  of  manhood  moved 
him  to  the  former. 

"  Let  us  have  no  more  of  this,"  said  he,  his  foot 
once  more  upon  the  step.  "  Go  back  to  where  we 
came  from." 

He  had  avoided  the  name  of  any  destination,  for 
there  was  now  quite  a  little  band  of  railway  folk 
about  the  cab,  and  he  still  kept  an  eye  upon  the 
court  of  justice,  and  laboured  to  avoid  concentric 
evidence.  But  here  again  the  fatal  jarvey  out- 
manoeuvred him. 

"  Back  to  the  Ludge?  "  cried  he,  in  shrill  tones 
of  protest. 


248     THE    MISADVENTURES 

"  Drive  on  at  once !  "  roared  John,  and  slammed 
the  door  behind  him,  so  that  the  crazy  chariot 
rocked  and  jingled. 

Forth  trundled  the  cab  into  the  Christmas 
streets,  the  fare  within  plunged  in  the  blackness  of 
a  despair  that  neighboured  on  unconsciousness,  the 
driver  on  the  box  digesting  his  rebuke  and  his  cus- 
tomer's duplicity.  I  would  not  be  thought  to  put 
the  pair  in  competition ;  John's  case  was  out  of  all 
parallel.  But  the  cabman,  too,  is  worth  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  judicious;  for  he  was  a  fellow  of 
genuine  kindliness  and  a  high  sense  of  personal 
dignity  incensed  by  drink;  and  his  advances  had 
been  cruelly  and  publicly  rebuffed.  As  he  drove, 
therefore,  he  counted  his  wrongs,  and  thirsted  for 
sympathy  and  drink.  Now,  it  chanced  he  had  a 
friend,  a  publican,  in  Queensferry  Street,  from 
whom,  in  view  of  the  sacredness  of  the  occasion, 
he  thought  he  might  extract  a  dram.  Queens- 
ferry  Street  lies  something  off  the  direct  road  to 
Murrayfield.  But  then  there  is  the  hilly  cross- 
road that  passes  by  the  valley  of  the  Leith  and  the 
Dean  Cemetery;  and  Queensferry  Street  is  on  the 
way  to  that.  What  was  to  hinder  the  cabman, 
since  his  horse  was  dumb,  from  choosing  the  cross- 
road, and  calling  on  his  friend  in  passing?  So 
it  was  decided;  and  the  charioteer,  already  some- 
what mollified,  turned  aside  his  horse  to  the  right. 

John,  meanwhile,  sat  collapsed,  his  chin  sunk 
upon  his  chest,  his  mind  in  abeyance.  The  smell 
pf  the  cab  was  still  faintly  present  to  his  senses, 
and  a  certain  leaden  chill  about  his  feet;   all  else 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     a49 

had  disappeared  in  one  vast  oppression  of  calamity 
and  physical  faintness.  It  was  drawing  on  to  noon 
—  two-and-twenty  hours  since  he  had  broken 
bread;  in  the  interval,  he  had  suffered  tortures  of 
sorrow  and  alarm,  and  been  partly  tipsy;  and 
though  it  was  impossible  to  say  he  slept,  yet  when 
the  cab  stopped  and  the  cabman  thrust  his  head 
into  the  window,  his  attention  had  to  be  recalled 
from  depths  of  vacancy. 

"  If  you  '11  no'  stand  me  a  dram/'  said  the  driver, 
with  a  well-merited  severity  of  tone  and  manner, 
"  I  dare  say  ye  '11  have  no  objection  to  my  taking 
one  mysel'  ?  " 

"Yes  —  no  —  do  what  you  like,"  returned 
John;  and  then,  as  he  watched  his  tormentor- 
mount  the  stairs  and  enter  the  whisky-shop,  there 
floated  into  his  mind  a  sense  as  of  something  long 
ago  familiar.  At  that  he  started  fully  awake,  and 
stared  at  the  shop-fronts.  Yes,  he  knew  them; 
but  when  ?  and  how  ?  Long  since,  he  thought ;  and 
then,  casting  his  eye  through  the  front  glass,  which 
had  been  recently  occluded  by  the  figure  of  the 
jarvey,  he  beheld  the  tree-tops  of  the  rookery  in 
Randolph  Crescent.  He  was  close  to  home  — 
home,  where  he  had  thought,  at  that  hour,  to  be 
sitting  in  the  well-remembered  drawing-room  in 
friendly  converse ;   and,  instead  — — ! 

It  was  his  first  impulse  to  drop  into  the  bottom 
of  the  cab;  his  next,  to  cover  his  face  with  his 
hands.  So  he  sat,  while  the  cabman  toasted  the 
publican,  and  the  publican  toasted  the  cabman,  and 
both  reviewed  the  affairs  of  the  nation ;  so  he  still 


250    THE    MISADVENTURES 

sat,  when  his  master  condescended  to  return,  and 
drive  off  at  last  down-hill,  along  the  curve  of  Lyne- 
doch  Place;  but  even  so  sitting,  as  he  passed  the 
end  of  his  father's  street,  he  took  one  glance  from 
between  shielding  ringers,  and  beheld  a  doctor's 
carriage  at  the  door. 

"Well,  just  so,"  thought  he;  "I'll  have  killed 
my  father !    And  this  is  Christmas-day !  " 

If  Mr.  Nicholson  died,  it  was  down  this  same 
road  he  must  journey  to  the  grave;  and  down  this 
road,  on  the  same  errand,  his  wife  had  preceded 
him  years  before ;  and  many  other  leading  citizens, 
with  the  proper  trappings  and  attendance  of  the 
end.  And  now,  in  that  frosty,  ill-smelling,  straw- 
carpeted,  and  ragged-cushioned  cab,  with  his  breath 
congealing  on  the  glasses,  where  else  was  John  him- 
self advancing  to  ? 

The  thought  stirred  his  imagination,  which 
began  to  manufacture  many  thousand  pictures, 
bright  and  fleeting,  like  the  shapes  in  a  kaleido- 
scope; and  now  he  saw  himself,  ruddy  and  com- 
fortered,  sliding  in  the  gutter;  and,  again,  a  little 
woe-begone,  bored  urchin  tricked  forth  in  crape 
and  weepers,  descending  this  same  hill  at  the  foot's- 
pace  of  mourning  coaches,  his  mother's  body  just 
preceding  him;  and  yet  again,  his  fancy,  running 
far  in  front,  showed  him  his  destination  —  now 
standing  solitary  in  the  low  sunshine,  with  the 
sparrows  hopping  on  the  threshold  and  the  dead 
man  within  staring  at  the  roof  —  and  now,  with  a 
sudden  change,  thronged  about  with  white-faced, 
hand-uplifting   neighbours,    and   doctor   bursting 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     251 

through  their  midst  and  fixing  his  stethoscope  as 
he  went,  the  policeman  shaking  a  sagacious  head 
beside  the  body.  It  was  to  this  he  feared  that  he 
was  driving;  in  the  midst  of  this  he  saw  himself 
arrive,  heard  himself  stammer  faint  explanations, 
and  felt  the  hand  of  the  constable  upon  his  shoulder. 
Heavens!  how  he  wished  he  had  played  the  man- 
lier part;  how  he  despised  himself  that  he  had 
fled  that  fatal  neighbourhood  when  all  was  quiet, 
and  should  now  be  tamely  travelling  back  when  it 
was  thronging  with  avengers! 

Any  strong  degree  of  passion  lends,  even  to  the 
dullest,  the  forces  of  the  imagination.  And  so  now 
as  he  dwelt  on  what  was  probably  awaiting  him  at 
the  end  of  this  distressful  drive  —  John,  who  saw 
things  little,  remembered  them  less,  and  could  not 
have  described  them  at  all,  beheld  in  his  mind's  eye 
the  garden  of  the  Lodge,  detailed  as  in  a  map ;  he 
went  to  and  fro  in  it,  feeding  his  terrors;  he  saw 
the  hollies,  the  snowy  borders,  the  paths  where  he 
had  sought  Alan,  the  high  conventual  walls,  the 
shut  door  —  what !  was  the  door  shut  ?  Ay,  truly, 
he  had  shut  it  —  shut  in  his  money,  his  escape,  his 
future  life  —  shut  it  with  these  hands,  and  none 
could  now  open  it!  He  heard  the  snap  of  the 
spring-lock  like  something  bursting  in  his  brain, 
and  sat  astonied. 

And  then  he  woke  again,  terror  jarring  through 
his  vitals.  This  was  no  time  to  be  idle;  he  must 
be  up  and  doing,  he  must  think.  Once  at  the  end  of 
this  ridiculous  cruise,  once  at  the  Lodge  door,  there 
would  be  nothing  for  it  but  to  turn  the  cab  and 


i$i     THE    MISADVENTURES 

trundle  back  again.  Why,  then,  go  so  far?  why 
add  another  feature  of  suspicion  to  a  case  already 
so  suggestive  ?  why  not  turn  at  once  ?  It  was  easy 
to  say,  turn ;  but  whither  ?  He  had  nowhere  now 
to  go  to ;  he  could  never  —  he  saw  it  in  letters  of 
blood  —  he  could  never  pay  that  cab;  he  was 
saddled  with  that  cab  for  ever.  Oh,  that  cab !  his 
soul  yearned  and  burned,  and  his  bowels  sounded 
to  be  rid  of  it.  He  forgot  all  other  cares.  He 
must  first  quit  himself  of  this  ill-smelling  vehicle 
and  of  the  human  beast  that  guided  it  —  first  do 
that;   do  that,  at  least;   do  that  at  once. 

And  just  then  the  cab  suddenly  stopped,  and 
there  was  his  persecutor  rapping  on  the  front  glass. 
John  let  it  down,  and  beheld  the  port-wine  coun- 
tenance inflamed  with  intellectual  triumph. 

"  I  ken  wha  ye  are !  "  cried  the  husky  voice.  "  I 
mind  ye  now.  Ye  're  a  Nucholson.  I  drove  ye 
to  Hermiston  to  a  Christmas  party,  and  ye  came 
back  on  the  box,  and  I  let  ye  drive." 

It  is  a  fact.  John  knew  the  man ;  they  had  been 
even  friends.  His  enemy,  he  now  remembered, 
was  a  fellow  of  great  good-nature  —  endless  good- 
nature —  with  a  boy ;  why  not  with  a  man  ?  Why 
not  appeal  to  his  better  side?  He  grasped  at  the 
new  hope. 

"  Great  Scott !  and  so  you  did,"  he  cried,  as  if 
in  a  transport  of  delight,  his  voice  sounding  false 
in  his  own  ears.  "  Well,  if  that  's  so,  I  Ve  some- 
thing to  say  to  you.  I  '11  just  get  out,  I  guess. 
Where  are  we,  any  way?  " 

The  driver  had  fluttered  his  ticket  in  the  eyes  of 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     253 

the  branch-toll  keeper,  and  they  were  now  brought 
to  on  the  highest  and  most  solitary  part  of  the  by- 
road. On  the  left,  a  row  of  fieldside  trees  beshaded 
it ;  on  the  right,  it  was  bordered  by  naked  fallows, 
undulating  down-hill  to  the  Queensferry  Road ;  in 
front,  Corstorphine  Hill  raised  its  snow-bedabbled, 
darkling  woods  against  the  sky.  John  looked  all 
about  him,  drinking  the  clear  air  like  wine;  then 
his  eyes  returned  to  the  cabman's  face  as  he  sat, 
not  ungleefully,  awaiting  John's  communication, 
with  the  air  of  one  looking  to  be  tipped. 

The  features  of  that  face  were  hard  to  read, 
drink  had  so  swollen  them,  drink  had  so  painted 
them,  in  tints  that  varied  from  brick  red  to  mul- 
berry. The  small  grey  eyes  blinked,  the  lips 
moved,  with  greed ;  greed  was  the  ruling  passion ; 
and  though  there  was  some  good-nature,  some 
genuine  kindliness,  a  true  human  touch,  in  the  old 
toper,  his  greed  was  now  so  set  afire  by  hope,  that 
all  other  traits  of  character  lay  dormant.  He  sat 
there  a  monument  of  gluttonous  desire. 

John's  heart  slowly  fell.  He  had  opened  his  lips, 
but  he  stood  there  and  uttered  naught.  He  sounded 
the  well  of  his  courage,  and  it  was  dry.  He  groped 
in  his  treasury  of  words,  and  it  was  vacant.  A 
devil  of  dumbness  had  him  by  the  throat ;  the  devil 
of  terror  babbled  in  his  ears ;  and  suddenly,  with- 
out a  word  uttered,  with  no  conscious  purpose 
formed  in  his  will,  John  whipped  about,  tumbled 
over  the  roadside  wall,  and  began  running  for  his 
life  across  the  fallows. 

He  had  not  gone  far,  he  was  not  past  the  midst 


254      JOHN    NICHOLSON 

of  the  first  field,  when  his  whole  brain  thundered 
within  him,  "  Fool !  You  have  your  watch !  "  The 
shock  stopped  him,  and  he  faced  once  more  toward 
the  cab.  The  driver  was  leaning  over  the  wall, 
brandishing  his  whip,  his  face  empurpled,  roaring 
like  a  bull.  And  John  saw  (or  thought)  that  he 
had  lost  the  chance.  No  watch  would  pacify  the 
man's  resentment  now;  he  would  cry  for  ven- 
geance also.  John  would  be  had  under  the  eye  of 
the  police;  his  tale  would  be  unfolded,  his  secret 
plumbed,  his  destiny  would  close  on  him  at  last, 
and  for  ever. 

He  uttered  a  deep  sigh ;  and  just  as  the  cabman, 
taking  heart  of  grace,  was  beginning  at  last  to  scale 
the  wall,  his  defaulting  customer  fell  again  to  run- 
ning, and  disappeared  into  the  further  fields. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SINGULAR   INSTANCE   OF  THE   UTILITY   OF 

PASS-KEYS 

WHERE  he  ran  at  first,  John  never  very 
clearly  knew ;  nor  yet  how  long  a  time 
elapsed  ere  he  found  himself  in  the  by- 
road near  the  lodge  of  Ravelston,  propped  against 
the  wall,  his  lungs  heaving  like  bellows,  his  legs 
leaden-heavy,  his  mind  possessed  by  one  sole  desire 
—  to  lie  down  and  be  unseen.  He  remembered  the 
thick  coverts  round  the  quarry-hole  pond,  an  un- 
trodden corner  of  the  world  where  he  might  surely 
find  concealment  till  the  night  should  fall.  Thither 
he  passed  down  the  lane ;  and  when  he  came  there, 
behold!  he  had  forgotten  the  frost,  and  the  pond 
was  alive  with  young  people  skating,  and  the  pond- 
side  coverts  were  thick  with  lookers-on.  He  looked 
on  awhile  himself.  There  was  one  tall,  graceful 
maiden,  skating  hand  in  hand  with  a  youth,  on 
whom  she  bestowed  her  bright  eyes  perhaps  too 
patently ;  and  it  was  strange  with  what  anger  John 
beheld  her.  He  could  have  broken  forth  in  curses ; 
he  could  have  stood  there,  like  a  mortified  tramp, 
and  shaken  his  fist  and  vented  his  gall  upon  her 
by  the  hour  —  or  so  he  thought ;  and  the  next  mo- 
ment his  heart  bled  for  the  girl.    "  Poor  creature, 


256     THE    MISADVENTURES 

it 's  little  she  knows !  "  he  sighed.  "  Let  her  en- 
joy herself  while  she  can ! "  But  was  it  possible, 
when  Flora  used  to  smile  at  him  on  the  Braid 
ponds,  she  could  have  looked  so  fulsome  to  a  sick- 
hearted  bystander? 

The  thought  of  one  quarry,  in  his  frozen  wits, 
suggested  another;  and  he  plodded  off  toward 
Craig  Leith.  A  wind  had  sprung  up  out  of  the 
north-west;  it  was  cruel  keen,  it  dried  him  like 
a  fire,  and  racked  his  finger- joints.  It  brought 
clouds,  too;  pale,  swift,  hurrying  clouds,  that 
blotted  heaven  and  shed  gloom  upon  the  earth.  He 
scrambled  up  among  the  hazelled  rubbish  heaps  that 
surround  the  caldron  of  the  quarry,  and  lay  flat 
upon  the  stones.  The  wind  searched  close  along 
the  earth,  the  stones  were  cutting  and  icy,  the  bare 
hazels  wailed  about  him;  and  soon  the  air  of  the 
afternoon  began  to  be  vocal  with  those  strange  and 
dismal  harpings  that  herald  snow.  Pain  and  misery 
turned  in  John's  limbs  to  a  harrowing  impatience 
and  blind  desire  of  change;  now  he  would  roll  in 
his  harsh  lair,  and  when  the  flints  abraded  him,  was 
almost  pleased;  now  he  would  crawl  to  the  edge 
of  the  huge  pit  and  look  dizzily  down.  He  saw 
the  spiral  of  the  descending  roadway,  the  steep 
crags,  the  clinging  bushes,  the  peppering  of  snow- 
wreaths,  and  far  down  in  the  bottom,  the  dimin- 
ished crane.  Here,  no  doubt,  was  a  way  to  end  it. 
But  it  somehow  did  not  take  his  fancy. 

And  suddenly  he  was  aware  that  he  was  hungry ; 
ay,  even  through  the  tortures  of  the  cold,  even 
through  the  frosts  of  despair,  a  gross,  desperate 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     257 

longing  after  food,  no  matter  what,  no  matter  how, 
began  to  wake  and  spur  him.  Suppose  he  pawned 
his  watch  ?  But  no,  on  Christmas-day  —  this  was 
Christmas-day !  —  the  pawn-shop  would  be  closed. 
Suppose  he  went  to  the  public-house  close  by  at 
Blackhall,  and  offered  the  watch,  which  was  worth 
ten  pounds,  in  payment  for  a  meal  of  bread  and 
cheese  ?  The  incongruity  was  too  remarkable ;  the 
good  folks  would  either  put  him  to  the  door,  or 
only  let  him  in  to  send  for  the  police.  He  turned 
his  pockets  out  one  after  another ;  some  San  Fran- 
cisco tram-car  checks,  one  cigar,  no  lights,  the 
pass-key  to  his  father's  house,  a  pocket-handker- 
chief, with  just  a  touch  of  scent :  no,  money  could 
be  raised  on  none  of  these.  There  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  starve;  and  after  all,  what  mattered 
it?     That  also  was  a  door  of  exit. 

He  crept  close  among  the  bushes,  the  wind  play- 
ing round  him  like  a  lash ;  his  clothes  seemed  thin 
as  paper,  his  joints  burned,  his  skin  curdled  on  his 
bones.  He  had  a  vision  of  a  high-lying  cattle-drive 
in  California,  and  the  bed  of  a  dried  stream  with 
one  muddy  pool,  by  which  the  vaqueros  had  en- 
camped :  splendid  sun  over  all,  the  big  bonfire  blaz- 
ing, the  strips  of  cow  browning  and  smoking  on 
a  skewer  of  wood ;  how  warm  it  was,  how  savoury 
the  steam  of  scorching  meat!  And  then  again  he 
remembered  his  manifold  calamities,  and  burrowed 
and  wallowed  in  the  sense  of  his  disgrace  and 
shame.  And  next  he  was  entering  Frank's  res- 
taurant in  Montgomery  Street,  San  Francisco;  he 
had  ordered  a  pan-stew   and  venison  chops,   of 


258     THE    MISADVENTURES 

which  he  was  immoderately  fond,  and  as  he  sat 
waiting,  Munroe,  the  good  attendant,  brought  him 
a  whisky  punch;  he  saw  the  strawberries  float  on 
the  delectable  cup,  he  heard  the  ice  chink  about 
the  straws.  And  then  he  woke  again  to  his  de- 
tested fate,  and  found  himself  sitting,  humped 
together,  in  a  windy  combe  of  quarry  refuse  — 
darkness  thick  about  him,  thin  flakes  of  snow  flying 
here  and  there  like  rags  of  paper,  and  the  strong 
shuddering  of  his  body  clashing  his  teeth  like  a 
hiccup. 

We  have  seen  John  in  nothing  but  the  stormiest 
condition;  we  have  seen  him  reckless,  desperate, 
tried  beyond  his  moderate  powers;  of  his  daily 
self,  cheerful,  regular,  not  unthrifty,  we  have  seen 
nothing ;  and  it  may  thus  be  a  surprise  to  the  reader, 
to  learn  that  he  was  studiously  careful  of  his  health. 
This  favourite  preoccupation  now  awoke.  If  he 
were  to  sit  there  and  die  of  cold,  there  would  be 
mighty  little  gained ;  better  the  police  cell  and  the 
chances  of  a  jury  trial,  than  the  miserable  certainty 
of  death  at  a  dike-side  before  the  next  winter's 
dawn,  or  death  a  little  later  in  the  gas-lighted  wards 
of  an  infirmary. 

He  rose  on  aching  legs,  and  stumbled  here  and 
there  among  the  rubbish  heaps,  still  circumvented 
by  the  yawning  crater  of  the  quarry;  or  perhaps 
he  only  thought  so,  for  the  darkness  was  already 
dense,  the  snow  was  growing  thicker,  and  he  moved 
like  a  blind  man,  and  with  a  blind  man's  terrors. 
At  last  he  climbed  a  fence,  thinking  to  drop  into 
the  road,  and  found  himself  staggering,  instead, 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     259 

among  the  iron  furrows  of  a  ploughland,  endless, 
it  seemed,  as  a  whole  county.  And  next  he  was 
in  a  wood,  beating  among  young  trees;  and  then 
he  was  aware  of  a  house  with  many  lighted  win- 
dows, Christmas  carriages  waiting  at  the  doors, 
and  Christmas  drivers  (for  Christmas  has  a  double 
edge)  becoming  swiftly  hooded  with  snow.  From 
this  glimpse  of  human  cheerfulness,  he  fled  like 
Cain ;  wandered  in  the  night,  unpiloted,  careless 
of  whither  he  went;  fell,  and  lay,  and  then  rose 
again  and  wandered  further;  and  at  last,  like  a 
transformation  scene,  behold  him  in  the  lighted 
jaws  of  the  city,  staring  at  a  lamp  which  had 
already  donned  the  tilted  night-cap  of  the  snow. 
It  came  thickly  now,  a  "  Feeding  Storm  " ;  and 
while  he  yet  stood  blinking  at  the  lamp,  his  feet 
were  buried.  He  remembered  something  like  it 
in  the  past,  a  street-lamp  crowned  and  caked  upon 
the  windward  side  with  snow,  the  wind  uttering 
its  mournful  hoot,  himself  looking  on,  even  as 
now;  but  the  cold  had  struck  too  sharply  on  his 
wits,  and  memory  failed  him  as  to  the  date  and 
sequel  of  the  reminiscence. 

His  next  conscious  moment  was  on  the  Dean 
Bridge;  but  whether  he  was  John  Nicholson  of  a 
bank  in  a  California  street,  or  some  former  John, 
a  clerk  in  his  father's  office,  he  had  now  clean  for- 
gotten. Another  blank,  and  he  was  thrusting 
his  pass-key  into  the  door-lock  of  his  father's 
house. 

Hours  must  have  passed.  Whether  crouched 
on  the  cold  stones  or  wandering  in  the  fields  among 


260    THE    MISADVENTURES 

the  snow,  was  more  than  he  could  tell ;  but  hours 
had  passed.  The  finger  of  the  hall  clock  was  close 
on  twelve;  a  narrow  peep  of  gas  in  the  hall-lamp 
shed  shadows ;  and  the  door  of  the  back  room  — 
his  father's  room  —  was  open  and  emitted  a  warm 
light.  At  so  late  an  hour,  all  this  was  strange ;  the 
lights  should  have  been  out,  the  doors  locked,  the 
good  folk  safe  in  bed.  He  marvelled  at  the  irregu- 
larity, leaning  on  the  hall-table;  and  marvelled  to 
himself  there;  and  thawed  and  grew  once  more 
hungry,  in  the  warmer  air  of  the  house. 

The  clock  uttered  its  premonitory  catch ;  in  five 
minutes  Christmas-day  would  be  among  the  days 
of  the  past  —  Christmas!  —  what  a  Christmas! 
Well,  there  was  no  use  waiting;  he  had  come 
into  that  house,  he  scarce  knew  how ;  if  they  were 
to  thrust  him  forth  again,  it  had  best  be  done  at 
once;  and  he  moved  to  the  door  of  the  back  room 
and  entered. 

Oh,  well,  then  he  was  insane,  as  he  had  long 
believed. 

-  There,  in  his  father's  room,  at  midnight,  the  fire 
was  roaring  and  the  gas  blazing;  the  papers,  the 
sacred  papers  —  to  lay  a  hand  on  which  was  crim- 
inal —  had  all  been  taken  off  and  piled  along  the 
floor ;  a  cloth  was  spread,  and  a  supper  laid,  upon 
the  business  table;  and  in  his  father's  chair  a 
woman,  habited  like  a  nun,  sat  eating.  As  he 
appeared  in  the  doorway,  the  nun  rose,  gave  a 
low  cry,  and  stood  staring.  She  was  a  large 
woman,  strong,  calm,  a  little  masculine,  her  fea- 
tures marked  with  courage  and  good  sense;   and 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     261 

as  John  blinked  back  at  her,  a  faint  resemblance 
dodged  about  his  memory,  as  when  a  tune  haunts 
us,  and  yet  will  not  be  recalled. 

"  Why,  it 's  John !  "  cried  the  nun. 

"  I  dare  say  I  'm  mad,"  said  John,  unconsciously 
following  King  Lear ;  "  but,  upon  my  word,  I  do 
believe  you  're  Flora." 

"  Of  course  I  am,"  replied  she. 

And  yet  it  is  not  Flora  at  all,  thought  John; 
Flora  was  slender,  and  timid,  and  of  changing 
colour,  and  dewy-eyed;  and  had  Flora  such  an 
Edinburgh  accent?  But  he  said  none  of  these 
things,  which  was  perhaps  as  well.  What  he  said 
was,  "  Then  why  are  you  a  nun  ?  " 

"  Such  nonsense !  "  said  Flora.  "  I  'm  a,  sick- 
nurse;  and  I  am  here  nursing  your  sister,  with 
whom,  between  you  and  me,  there  is  precious  little 
the  matter.  But  that  is  not  the  question.  The 
point  is:  How  do  you  come  here?  and  are  you 
not  ashamed  to  show  yourself?  " 

"  Flora,"  said  John,  sepulchrally,  "  I  have  n't 
eaten  anything  for  three  days.  Or,  at  least,  I 
don't  know  what  day  it  is ;  but  I  guess  I  'm 
starving." 

"  You  unhappy  man !  "  she  cried.  "  Here,  sit 
down  and  eat  my  supper ;  and  I  '11  just  run 
up-stairs  and  see  my  patient,  not  but  what  I 
doubt  she  's  fast  asleep ;  for  Maria  is  a  malade 
imaginaire" 

With  this  specimen  of  the  French,  not  of  Strat- 
ford-atte-Bowe,  but  of  a  finishing  establishment  in 
Moray  Place,  she  left  John  alone  in  his  father's 


262     THE    MISADVENTURES 

sanctum.  He  fell  at  once  upon  the  food;  and  it 
is  to  be  supposed  that  Flora  had  found  her  patient 
wakeful,  and  been  detained  with  some  details  of 
nursing,  for  he  had  time  to  make  a  full  end  of 
all  there  was  to  eat,  and  not  only  to  empty  the 
teapot,  but  to  fill  it  again  from  a  kettle  that  was 
fitfully  singing  on  his  father's  fire.  Then  he  sat 
torpid,  and  pleased,  and  bewildered;  his  misfor- 
tunes were  then  half  forgotten;  his  mind  con- 
sidering, not  without  regret,  this  unsentimental 
return  to  his  old  love. 

He  was  thus  engaged,  when  that  bustling  woman 
noiselessly  re-entered. 

"  Have  you  eaten  ?  "  said  she.  "  Then  tell  me 
all  about  it." 

It  was  a  long  and  (as  the  reader  knows)  a  piti- 
ful story ;  but  Flora  heard  it  with  compressed  lips. 
She  was  lost  in  none  of  those  questionings  of 
human  destiny  that  have,  from  time  to  time,  ar- 
rested the  flight  of  my  own  pen ;  for  women,  such 
as  she,  are  no  philosophers,  and  behold  the  concrete 
only.  And  women,  such  as  she,  are  very  hard  on 
the  imperfect  man. 

"  Very  well,"  said  she,  when  he  had  done ;  "  then 
down  upon  your  knees  at  once,  and  beg  God's 
forgiveness." 

And  the  great  baby  plumped  upon  his  knees, 
and  did  as  he  was  bid;  and  none  the  worse  for 
that!  But  while  he  was  heartily  enough  request- 
ing forgiveness  on  general  principles,  the  rational 
side  of  him  distinguished,  and  wondered  if,  per- 
haps, the  apology  were  not  due  upon  the  other 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     263 

part.  And  when  he  rose  again  from  that  becom- 
ing exercise,  he  first  eyed  the  face  of  his  old  love 
doubtfully,  and  then,  taking  heart,  uttered  his 
protest. 

"  I  must  say,  Flora,"  said  he,  "  in  all  this  busi- 
ness, I  can  see  very  little  fault  of  mine." 

"  If  you  had  written  home,"  replied  the  lady, 
"  there  would  have  been  none  of  it.  If  you  had 
even  gone  to  Murrayfield  reasonably  sober,  you 
would  never  have  slept  there,  and  the  worst  would 
not  have  happened.  Besides,  the  whole  thing  be- 
gan years  ago.  You  got  into  trouble,  and  when 
your  father,  honest  man,  was  disappointed,  you 
took  the  pet,  or  got  afraid,  and  ran  away  from 
punishment.  Well,  you  Ve  had  your  own  way  of 
it,  John,  and  I  don't  suppose  you  like  it." 

"  I  sometimes  fancy  I  'm  not  much  better  than 
a  fool,"  sighed  John. 

"  My  dear  John,"  said  she,  "  not  much!  " 

He  looked  at  her,  and  his  eye  fell.  A  certain 
anger  rose  within  him;  here  was  a  Flora  he  dis- 
owned; she  was  hard;  she  was  of  a  set  colour; 
a  settled,  mature,  undecorative  manner;  plain  of 
speech,  plain  of  habit  —  he  had  come  near  saying, 
plain  of  face.  And  this  changeling  called  herself 
by  the  same  name  as  the  many-coloured,  clinging 
maid  of  yore;  she  of  the  frequent  laughter,  and 
the  many  sighs,  and  the  kind,  stolen  glances.  And 
to  make  all  worse,  she  took  the  upper  hand  with 
him,  which  (as  John  well  knew)  was  not  the  true 
relation  of  the  sexes.  He  steeled  his  heart  against 
this  sick-nurse. 


264    THE    MISADVENTURES 

"  And  how  do  you  come  to  be  here  ? "  he 
asked. 

She  told  him  how  she  had  nursed  her  father  in 
his  long  illness,  and  when  he  died,  and  she  was 
left  alone,  had  taken  to  nurse  others,  partly  from 
habit,  partly  to  be  of  some  service  in  the  world; 
partly,  it  might  be,  for  amusement.  "  There 's 
no  accounting  for  taste,"  said  she.  And  she  told 
him  how  she  went  largely  to  the  houses  of  old 
friends,  as  the  need  arose;  and  how  she  was  thus 
doubly  welcome,  as  an  old  friend  first,  and  then 
as  an  experienced  nurse,  to  whom  doctors  would 
confide  the  gravest  cases. 

"  And,  indeed,  it 's  a  mere  farce  my  being  here 
for  poor  Maria,"  she  continued ;  "  but  your  father 
takes  her  ailments  to  heart,  and  I  cannot  always 
be  refusing  him.  We  are  great  friends,  your 
father  and  I;  he  was  very  kind  to  me  long  ago 
—  ten  years  ago." 

A  strange  stir  came  in  John's  heart.  All  this 
while  had  he  been  thinking  only  of  himself?  All 
this  while,  why  had  he  not  written  to  Flora?  In 
penitential  tenderness,  he  took  her  hand,  and,  to 
his  awe  and  trouble,  it  remained  in  his,  com- 
pliant. A  voice  told  him  this  was  Flora,  after 
all  —  told  him  so  quietly,  yet  with  a  thrill  of 
singing. 

"  And  you  never  married  ?  "  said  he. 

"  No,  John ;   I  never  married,"  she  replied. 

The  hall  clock  striking  two  recalled  them  to  the 
sense  of  time. 

"  And  now,"  said  she,  "  you  have  been  fed  and 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     265 

warmed,  and  I  have  heard  your  story,  and  now 
it 's  high  time  to  call  your  brother." 

"  Oh !  "  cried  John,  chap-fallen ;  "  do  you  think 
that  absolutely  necessary?" 

"  /  can't  keep  you  here ;  I  am  a  stranger,"  said 
she.  "  Do  you  want  to  run  away  again  ?  I  thought 
you  had  enough  of  that." 

He  bowed  his  head  under  the  reproof.  She 
despised  him,  he  reflected,  as  he  sat  once  more 
alone;  a  monstrous  thing  for  a  woman  to  despise 
a  man;  and  strangest  of  all,  she  seemed  to  like 
him.  Would  his  brother  despise  him,  too?  And 
would  his  brother  like  him? 

And  presently  the  brother  appeared,  under 
Flora's  escort;  and,  standing  afar  off  beside  the 
doorway,  eyed  the  hero  of  this  tale. 

"  So  this  is  you  ?  "  he  said,  at  length. 

"  Yes,  Alick,  it 's  me  —  it 's  John,"  replied  the 
elder  brother,  feebly. 

"  And  how  did  you  get  in  here  ?  "  inquired  the 
younger. 

"  Oh,  I  had  my  pass-key,"  says  John. 

"  The  deuce  you  had !  "  said  Alexander.  "  Ah, 
you  lived  in  a  better  world!  There  are  no  pass- 
keys going  now." 

"  Well,  father  was  always  averse  to  them," 
sighed  John.  And  the  conversation  then  broke 
down,  and  the  brothers  looked  askance  at  one 
another  in  silence. 

"  Well,  and  what  the  devil  are  we  to  do  ?  "  said 
Alexander.  "  I  suppose  if  the  authorities  got  wind 
of  you,  you  would  be  taken  up  ?  " 


266     THE    MISADVENTURES 

"  It  depends  on  whether  they  've  found  the  body 
or  not,"  returned  John.  "  And  then  there 's  that 
cabman,  to  be  sure ! " 

"Oh,  bother  the  body!"  said  Alexander.  "I 
mean  about  the  other  thing.     That 's  serious." 

"Is  that  what  my  father  spoke  about?"  asked 
John.     "  I  don't  even  know  what  it  is." 

"  About  your  robbing  your  bank  in  California, 
of  course,"  replied  Alexander. 

It  was  plain,  from  Flora's  face,  that  this  was 
the  first  she  had  heard  of  it;  it  was  plainer  still, 
from  John's,  that  he  was  innocent. 

"  I !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  I  rob  my  bank !  My 
God!  Flora,  this  is  too  much;  even  you  must 
allow  that." 

"  Meaning  you  did  n't?  "  asked  Alexander. 

"  I  never  robbed  a  soul  in  all  my  days,"  cried 
John :  "  except  my  father,  if  you  call  that  robbery; 
and  I  brought  him  back  the  money  in  this  room, 
and  he  would  n't  even  take  it !  " 

"  Look  here,  John,"  said  his  brother ;  "  let  us 
have  no  misunderstanding  upon  this.  Macewen 
saw  my  father ;  he  told  him  a  bank  you  had  worked 
for  in  San  Francisco  was  wiring  over  the  habitable 
globe  to  have  you  collared  —  that  it  was  supposed 
you  had  nailed  thousands ;  and  it  was  dead  certain 
you  had  nailed  three  hundred.  So  Macewen  said, 
and  I  wish  you  would  be  careful  how  you  answer. 
I  may  tell  you  also,  that  your  father  paid  the  three 
hundred  on  the  spot." 

"  Three  hundred ?"  repeated  John.  "Three  hun- 
dred pounds,  you  mean  ?    That 's  fifteen  hundred 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     267 

dollars.  Why,  then,  it  's  Kirkman ! "  he  broke 
out.  "  Thank  Heaven !  I  can  explain  all  that.  I 
gave  them  to  Kirkman  to  pay  for  me  the  night 
before  I  left  —  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and  a 
letter  to  the  manager.  What  do  they  suppose  I 
would  steal  fifteen  hundred  dollars  for?  I  'm  rich; 
I  struck  it  rich  in  stocks.  It 's  the  silliest  stuff  I 
ever  heard  of.  All  that  's  needful  is  to  cable  to  the 
manager :  Kirkman  has  the  fifteen  hundred  —  find 
Kirkman.  He  was  a  fellow-clerk  of  mine,  and  a 
hard  case ;  but  to  do  him  justice,  I  did  n't  think  he 
was  as  hard  as  this." 

"  And  what  do  you  say  to  that,  Alick  ?  "  asked 
Flora. 

"  I  say  the  cablegram  shall  go  to-night !  "  cried 
Alexander,  with  energy.  "  Answer  prepaid,  too. 
If  this  can  be  cleared  away  —  and  upon  my  word 
I  do  believe  it  can  —  we  shall  all  be  able  to  hold  up 
our  heads  again.  Here,  you  John,  you  stick  down 
the  address  of  your  bank  manager.  You,  Flora, 
you  can  pack  John  into  my  bed,  for  which  I  have 
no  further  use  to-night.  As  for  me,  I  am  off  to 
the  post-office,  and  thence  to  the  High  Street  about 
the  dead  body.  The  police  ought  to  know,  you 
see,  and  they  ought  to  know  through  John;  and 
I  can  tell  them  some  rigmarole  about  my  brother 
being  a  man  of  highly  nervous  organisation,  and 
the  rest  of  it.  And  then,  I  '11  tell  you  what,  John 
—  did  you  notice  the  name  upon  the  cab  ?  " 

John  gave  the  name  of  the  driver,  which,  as  I 
have  not  been  able  to  command  the  vehicle,  I  here 
suppress. 


268     THE    MISADVENTURES 

"Well,"  resumed  Alexander,  "I'll  call  round 
at  their  place  before  I  come  back,  and  pay  your 
shot  for  you.  In  that  way,  before  breakfast-time, 
you  '11  be  as  good  as  new." 

John  murmured  inarticulate  thanks.  To  see  his 
brother  thus  energetic  in  his  service  moved  him 
beyond  expression;  if  he  could  not  utter  what  he 
felt,  he  showed  it  legibly  in  his  face ;  and  Alexander 
read  it  there,  and  liked  it  the  better  in  that  dumb 
delivery. 

"  But  there 's  one  thing,"  said  the  latter,  "  cable- 
grams are  dear;  and  I  dare  say  you  remember 
enough  of  the  governor  to  guess  the  state  of  my 
finances." 

"  The  trouble  is,"  said  John,  "  that  all  my  stamps 
are  in  that  beastly  house." 

"  All  your  what  ?  "  asked  Alexander. 

"  Stamps  —  money,"  explained  John.  "  It  *s  an 
American  expression ;  I  'm  afraid  I  contracted  one 
or  two." 

"  I  have  some,"  said  Flora.  "  I  have  a  pound 
note  up-stairs." 

"  My  dear  Flora,"  returned  Alexander,  "  a  pound 
note  won't  see  us  very  far;  and  besides,  this  is 
my  father's  business,  and  I  shall  be  very  much  sur- 
prised if  it  is  n't  my  father  who  pays  for  it." 

"  I  would  not  apply  to  him  yet ;  I  do  not  think 
that  can  be  wise,"  objected  Flora. 

"  You  have  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  my  re- 
sources, and  none  at  all  of  my  effrontery,"  replied 
Alexander.     "  Please  observe." 

He  put  John  from  his  way,  chose  a  stout  knife 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     269 

among  the  supper  things,  and  with  surprising  quick- 
ness broke  into  his  father's  drawer. 

"  There  's  nothing  easier  when  you  come  to  try," 
he  observed,  pocketing  the  money. 

"  I  wish  you  had  not  done  that,"  said  Flora. 
u  You  will  never  hear  the  last  of  it." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  returned  the  young  man ; 
"  the  governor  is  human  after  all.  And  now,  John, 
let  me  see  your  famous  pass-key.  Get  into  bed,  and 
don't  move  for  any  one  till  I  come  back.  They 
won't  mind  you  not  answering  when  they  knock; 
I  generally  don't  myself." 


CHAPTER   IX 

IN  WHICH   MR.    NICHOLSON  ACCEPTS  THE 
PRINCIPLE   OF   AN   ALLOWANCE 

IN  spite  of  the  horrors  of  the  day  and  the  tea- 
drinking  of  the  night,  John  slept  the  sleep 
of  infancy.  He  was  awakened  by  the  maid, 
as  it  might  have  been  ten  years  ago,  tapping  at  the 
door.  The  winter  sunrise  was  painting  the  east; 
and  as  the  window  was  to  the  back  of  the  house, 
it  shone  into  the  room  with  many  strange  colours 
of  refracted  light.  Without,  the  houses  were  all 
cleanly  roofed  with  snow;  the  garden  walls  were 
coped  with  it  a  foot  in  height ;  the  greens  lay  glit- 
tering. Yet  strange  as  snow  had  grown  to  John 
during  his  years  upon  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco, 
it  was  what  he  saw  within  that  most  affected  him. 
For  it  was  to  his  own  room  that  Alexander  had 
been  promoted;  there  was  the  old  paper  with  the 
device  of  flowers,  in  which  a  cunning  fancy  might 
yet  detect  the  face  of  Skinny  Jim,  of  the  Academy, 
John's  former  dominie ;  there  was  the  old  chest 
of  drawers;  there  were  the  chairs  —  one,  two, 
three  —  three  as  before.  Only  the  carpet  was  new, 
and  the  litter  of  Alexander's  clothes  and  books  and 
drawing  materials,  and  a  pencil-drawing  on  the 


JOHN    NICHOLSON       271 

wall,  which  (in  John's  eyes)  appeared  a  marvel  of 
proficiency. 

He  was  thus  lying,  and  looking,  and  dreaming, 
hanging,  as  it  were,  between  two  epochs  of  his  life, 
when  Alexander  came  to  the  door,  and  made  his 
presence-  known  in  a  loud  whisper.  John  let  him 
in,  and  jumped  back  into  the  warm  bed. 

"  Well,  John,"  said  Alexander,  "  the  cablegram 
is  sent  in  your  name,  and  twenty  words  of  answer 
paid.  I  have  been  to  the  cab  office  and  paid  your 
cab,  even  saw  the  old  gentleman  himself,  and  prop- 
erly apologised.  He  was  mighty  placable,  and  in- 
dicated his  belief  you  had  been  drinking.  Then  I 
knocked  up  old  Macewen  out  of  bed,  and  explained 
affairs  to  him  as  he  sat  and  shivered  in  a  dressing- 
gown.  And  before  that  I  had  been  to  the  High 
Street,  where  they  have  heard  nothing  of  your 
dead  body,  so  that  I  inclined  to  the  idea  that  you 
dreamed  it." 

"  Catch  me!  "  said  John. 

"  Well,  the  police  never  do  know  anything," 
assented  Alexander ;  "  and  at  any  rate,  they  have 
despatched  a  man  to  inquire  and  to  recover  your 
trousers  and  your  money,  so  that  really  your  bill 
is  now  fairly  clean ;  and  I  see  but  one  lion  in  your 
path  —  the  governor." 

"  I  '11  be  turned  out  again,  you  '11  see,"  said  John, 
dismally. 

"  I  don't  imagine  so,"  returned  the  other;  "not 
if  you  do  what  Flora  and  I  have  arranged;  and 
your  business  now  is  to  dress,  and  lose  no  time 
about  it.    Is  your  watch  right  ?    Well,  you  have  a 


272     THE    MISADVENTURES 

quarter  of  an  hour.  By  five  minutes  before  the 
half  hour  you  must  be  at  table,  in  your  old  seat, 
under  Uncle  Duthie's  picture.  Flora  will  be  there 
to  keep  you  countenance;  and  we  shall  see  what 
we  shall  see." 

"  Would  n't  it  be  wiser  for  me  to  stay  in  bed  ?  " 
said  John. 

"If  you  mean  to  manage  your  own  concerns, 
you  can  do  precisely  what  you  like,"  replied  Alex- 
ander ;  "  but  if  you  are  not  in  your  place  five 
minutes  before  the  half  hour  I  wash  my  hands  of 
you,  for  one." 

And  thereupon  he  departed.  He  had  spoken 
warmly,  but  the  truth  is,  his  heart  was  somewhat 
troubled.  And  as  he  hung  over  the  balusters, 
watching  for  his  father  to  appear,  he  had  hard  ado 
to  keep  himself  braced  for  the  encounter  that  must 
follow. 

"  If  he  takes  it  well,  I  shall  be  lucky,"  he  re- 
flected. "  If  he  takes  it  ill,  why,  it  '11  be  a  herring 
across  John's  tracks,  and  perhaps  all  for  the  best. 
He  's  a  confounded  muff,  this  brother  of  mine,  but 
he  seems  a  decent  soul." 

At  that  stage  a  door  opened  below  with  a  certain 
emphasis,  and  Mr.  Nicholson  was  seen  solemnly 
to  descend  the  stairs,  and  pass  into  his  own  apart- 
ment. Alexander  followed,  quaking  inwardly,  but 
with  a  steady  face.  He  knocked,  was  bidden  to 
enter,  and  found  his  father  standing  in  front  of  the 
forced  drawer,  to  which  he  pointed  as  he  spoke. 

"  This  is  a  most  extraordinary  thing,"  said  he ; 
"  I  have  been  robbed !  " 


OF   JOHN    NICHOLSON     273 

"  I  was  afraid  you  would  notice  it,"  observed  his 
son ;  "  it  made  such  a  beastly  hash  of  the  table." 

"  You  were  afraid  I  would  notice  it  ?  "  repeated 
Mr.  Nicholson.  "And,  pray,  what  may  that 
mean  ?  " 

"  That  I  was  a  thief,  sir,"  returned  Alexander. 
"  I  took  all  the  money  in  case  the  servants  should 
get  hold  of  it;  and  here  is  the  change,  and  a  note 
of  my  expenditure.  You  were  gone  to  bed,  you 
see,  and  I  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  knock  you  up; 
but  I  think  when  you  have  heard  the  circumstances, 
you  will  do  me  justice.  The  fact  is,  I  have  reason 
to  believe  there  has  been '  some  dreadful  error 
about  my  brother  John;  the  sooner  it  can  be 
cleared  up  the  better  for  all  parties ;  it  was  a  piece 
of  business,  sir  —  and  so  I  took  it,  and  decided, 
on  my  own  responsibility,  to  send  a  telegram  to 
San  Francisco.  Thanks  to  my  quickness  we  may 
hear  to-night.  There  appears  to  be  no  doubt,  sir, 
that  John  has  been  abominably  used." 

"  When  did  this  take  place?  "  asked  the  father. 

"  Last  night,  sir,  after  you  were  asleep,"  was  the 
reply. 

"  It 's  most  extraordinary,"  said  Mr.  Nicholson. 
"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  have  been  out  all 
night?" 

"  All  night,  as  you  say,  sir.  I  have  been  to  the 
telegraph  and  the  police  office,  and  Mr.  Macewen's. 
Oh,  I  had  my  hands  full,"  said  Alexander. 

"  Very  irregular,"  said  the  father.  "  You  think 
of  no  one  but  yourself." 

"  I  do  not  see  that  I  have  much  to  gain  in  bring- 
18 


274     THE    MISADVENTURES 

ing  back  my  elder  brother,"  returned  Alexander, 
shrewdly. 

The  answer  pleased  the  old  man;  he  smiled. 
"  Well,  well,  I  will  go  into  this  after  breakfast," 
said  he. 

"  I  'm  sorry  about  the  table,"  said  the  son. 

"  The  table  is  a  small  matter ;  I  think  nothing 
of  that,"  said  the  father. 

"  It 's  another  example,"  continued  the  son,  "  of 
the  awkwardness  of  a  man  having  no  money  of 
his  own.  If  I  had  a  proper  allowance,  like  other 
fellows  of  my  age,  this  would  have  been  quite 
unnecessary." 

"  A  proper  allowance !  "  repeated  his  father,  in 
tones  of  blighting  sarcasm,  for  the  expression  was 
not  new  to  him.  "  I  have  never  grudged  you 
money  for  any  proper  purpose." 

"  No  doubt,  no  doubt,"  said  Alexander,  "  but 
then  you  see  you  ar'n't  always  on  the  spot  to 
have  the  thing  explained  to  you.  Last  night  for 
instance " 

"  You  could  have  wakened  me  last  night,"  in- 
terrupted his  father. 

"  Was  it  not  some  similar  affair  that  first  got 
John  into  a  mess  ?  "  asked  the  son,  skilfully  evading 
the  point. 

But  the  father  was  not  less  adroit.  "  And  pray, 
sir,  how  did  you  come  and  go  out  of  the  house?  " 
he  asked. 

"  I  forgot  to  lock  the  door,  it  seems,"  replied 
Alexander. 

"  I  have  had  cause  to  complain  of  that  too  often," 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     275 

said  Mr.  Nicholson.  "  But  still  I  do  not  under- 
stand.   Did  you  keep  the  servants  up  ?  " 

"  I  propose  to  go  into  all  that  at  length  after 
breakfast,"  returned  Alexander.  "  There  is  the 
half  hour  going;  we  must  not  keep  Miss  Mackenzie 
waiting." 

And  greatly  daring,  he  opened  the  door. 

Even  Alexander,  who,  it  must  have  been  per- 
ceived, was  on  terms  of  comparative  freedom  with 
his  parents;  even  Alexander  had  never  before 
dared  to  cut  short  an  interview  in  this  high-handed 
fashion.  But  the  truth  is  the  very  mass  of  his 
son's  delinquencies  daunted  the  old  gentleman.  He 
was  like  the  man  with  the  cart  of  apples  —  this  was 
beyond  him!  That  Alexander  should  have  spoiled 
his  table,  taken  his  money,  stayed  out  all  night, 
and  then  coolly  acknowledged  all,  was  something 
undreamed  of  in  the  Nicholsonian  philosophy,  and 
transcended  comment.  The  return  of  the  change, 
which  the  old  gentleman  still  carried  in  his  hand, 
had  been  a  feature  of  imposing  impudence ;  it  had 
dealt  him  a  staggering  blow.  Then  there  was 
the  reference  to  John's  original  flight  —  a  subject 
which  he  always  kept  resolutely  curtained  in  his 
own  mind;  for  he  was  a  man  who  loved  to  have 
made  no  mistakes,  and  when  he  feared  he  might 
have  made  one  kept  the  papers  sealed.  In  view 
of  all  these  surprises  and  reminders,  and  of  his 
son's  composed  and  masterful  demeanour,  there 
began  to  creep  on  Mr.  Nicholson  a  sickly  misgiv- 
ing. He  seemed  beyond  his  depth;  if  he  did  or 
said  anything,  he  might  come  to  regret  it.     The 


276     THE    MISADVENTURES 

young  man,  besides,  as  he  had  pointed  out  himself, 
was  playing  a  generous  part.  And  if  wrong  had 
been  done  —  and  done  to  one  who  was,  after,  and 
in  spite  of,  all,  a  Nicholson  —  it  should  certainly 
be  righted. 

All  things  considered,  monstrous  as  it  was  to 
be  cut  short  in  his  inquiries,  the  old  gentleman 
submitted,  pocketed  the  change,  and  followed  his 
son  into  the  dining-room.  During  these  few  steps 
he  once  more  mentally  revolted,  and  once  more, 
and  this  time  finally,  laid  down  his  arms:  a  still, 
small  voice  in  his  bosom  having  informed  him 
authentically  of  a  piece  of  news ;  that  he  was  afraid 
of  Alexander.  The  strange  thing  was  that  he  was 
pleased  to  be  afraid  of  him.  He  was  proud  of 
his  son;  he  might  be  proud  of  him;  the  boy 
had  character  and  grit,  and  knew  what  he  was 
doing. 

These  were  his  reflections  as  he  turned  the 
corner  of  the  dining-room  door.  Miss  Mackenzie 
was  in  the  place  of  honour,  conjuring  with  a  tea- 
pot and  a  cozy;  and,  behold!  there  was  another 
person  present,  a  large,  portly,  whiskered  man  of 
a  very  comfortable  and  respectable  air,  who  now 
rose  from  his  seat  and  came  forward,  holding  out 
his  hand. 

"  Good-morning,  father,"  said  he. 

Of  the  contention  of  feeling  that  ran  high  in  Mr. 
Nicholson's  starched  bosom,  no  outward  sign  was 
visible;  nor  did  he  delay  long  to  make  a  choice 
of  conduct.  Yet  in  that  interval  he  had  reviewed 
a  great  field  of  possibilities  both  past  and  future; 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     277 

whether  it  was  possible  he  had  not  been  perfectly- 
wise  in  his  treatment  of  John;  whether  it  was 
possible  that  John  was  innocent;  whether,  if  he 
turned  John  out  a  second  time,  as  his  outraged 
authority  suggested,  it  was  possible  to  avoid  a 
scandal;  and  whether,  if  he  went  to  that  ex- 
tremity, it  was  possible  that  Alexander  might 
rebel. 

"  Hum !  "  said  Mr.  Nicholson,  and  put  his  hand, 
limp  and  dead,  into  John's. 

And  then,  in  an  embarrassed  silence,  all  took 
their  places ;  and  even  the  paper  —  from  which  it 
was  the  old  gentleman's  habit  to  suck  mortifica- 
tion daily,  as  he  marked  the  decline  of  our  in- 
stitutions—  even  the  paper  lay  furled  by  his 
side. 

But  presently  Flora  came  to  the  rescue.  She 
slid  into  the  silence  with  a  technicality,  asking  if 
John  still  took  his  old  inordinate  amount  of  sugar. 
Thence  it  was  but  a  step  to  the  burning  question 
of  the  day;  and  in  tones  a  little  shaken,  she  com- 
mented on  the  interval  since  she  had  last  made  tea 
for  the  prodigal,  and  congratulated  him  on  his 
return.  And  then  addressing  Mr.  Nicholson,  she 
congratulated  him  also  in  a  manner  that  defied  his 
ill-humour;  and  from  that  launched  into  the  tale 
of  John's  misadventures,  not  without  some  suitable 
suppressions. 

Gradually  Alexander  joined;  between  them, 
whether  he  would  or  no,  they  forced  a  word  or 
two  from  John ;  and  these  fell  so  tremulously,  and 
spoke   so  eloquently   of   a   mind   oppressed   with 


278     THE    MISADVENTURES 

dread,  that  Mr.  Nicholson  relented.  At  length 
even  he  contributed  a  question:  and  before  the 
meal  was  at  an  end  all  four  were  talking  even 
freely. 

Prayers  followed,  with  the  servants  gaping  at 
this  new-comer  whom  no  one  had  admitted;  and 
after  prayers  there  came  that  moment  on  the  clock 
which  was  the  signal  for  Mr.  Nicholson's  departure. 

"  John,"  said  he,  "  of  course  you  will  stay  here. 
Be  very  careful  not  to  excite  Maria,  if  Miss  Mac- 
kenzie thinks  it  desirable  that  you  should  see  her. 
Alexander,  I  wish  to  speak  with  you  alone."  And 
then,  when  they  were  both  in  the  back  room :  "  You 
need  not  come  to  the  office  to-day,"  said  he;  "  you 
can  stay  and  amuse  your  brother,  and  I  think  it 
would  be  respectful  to  call  on  Uncle  Greig.  And 
by  the  bye  "  (this  spoken  with  a  certain  —  dare 
we  say?  —  bashfulness),  "I  agree  to  concede  the 
principle  of  an  allowance ;  and  I  will  consult  with 
Dr.  Durie,  who  is  quite  a  man  of  the  world  and 
has  sons  of  his  own,  as  to  the  amount.  And,  my 
fine  fellow,  you  may  consider  yourself  in  luck !  " 
he  added,  with  a  smile. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Alexander. 

Before  noon  a  detective  had  restored  to  John 
his  money,  and  brought  news,  sad  enough  in  truth, 
but  perhaps  the  least  sad  possible.  Alan  had  been 
found  in  his  own  house  in  Regent's  Terrace,  under 
care  of  the  terrified  butler.  He  was  quite  mad, 
and  instead  of  going  to  prison,  had  gone  to  Morn- 
ingside  Asylum.    The  murdered  man,  it  appeared, 


OF    JOHN    NICHOLSON     279 

was  an  evicted  tenant  who  had  for  nearly  a  year 
pursued  his  late  landlord  with  threats  and  insults; 
and  beyond  this,  the  cause  and  details  of  the  tragedy 
were  lost. 

When  Mr.  Nicholson  returned  from  dinner  they 
were  able  to  put  a  despatch  into  his  hands :  "  John 
V.  Nicholson,  Randolph  Crescent,  Edinburgh. — 
Kirkham  has  disappeared ;  police  looking  for  him. 
All  understood.  Keep  mind  quite  easy.  —  Austin." 
Having  had  this  explained  to  him,  the  old  gentle- 
man took  down  the  cellar  key  and  departed  for  two 
bottles  of  the  1820  port.  Uncle  Greig  dined  there 
that  day,  and  Cousin  Robina,  and,  by  an  odd 
chance,  Mr.  Macewen;  and  the  presence  of  these 
strangers  relieved  what  might  have  been  otherwise 
a  somewhat  strained  relation.  Ere  they  departed, 
the  family  was  welded  once  more  into  a  fair  sem- 
blance of  unity. 

In  the  end  of  April  John  led  Flora  —  or,  as 
more  descriptive,  Flora  led  John  —  to  the  altar, 
if  altar  that  may  be  called  which  was  indeed  the 
drawing-room  mantel-piece  in  Mr.  Nicholson's 
house,  with  the  Reverend  Dr.  Durie  posted  on  the 
hearth-rug  in  the  guise  of  Hymen's  priest. 

The  last  I  saw  of  them,  on  a  recent  visit  to  the 
north,  was  at  a  dinner-party  in  the  house  of  my 
old  friend  Gellatly  Macbride;  and  after  we  had, 
in  classic  phrase,  "  rejoined  the  ladies,"  I  had  an 
opportunity  to  overhear  Flora  conversing  with 
another  married  woman  on  the  much  canvassed 
matter  of  a  husband's  tobacco. 

"  Oh,  yes!  "  said  she;  "  I  only  allow  Mr.  Nichol- 


280       JOHN    NICHOLSON 

son  four  cigars  a  day.  Three  he  smokes  at  fixed 
times  —  after  a  meal,  you  know,  my  dear;  and 
the  fourth  he  can  take  when  he  likes  with  any 
friend." 

"  Bravo !  "  thought  I  to  myself ;  "  this  is  the  wife 
for  my  friend  John !  " 


THE   STORY    OF   A   LIE 


THE    STORY    OF   A    LIE 

CHAPTER   I 
INTRODUCES   THE   ADMIRAL 

WHEN  Dick  Naseby  was  in  Paris  he 
made  some  odd  acquaintances,  for  he 
was  one  of  those  who  have  ears  to 
hear,  and  can  use  their  eyes  no  less  than  their 
intelligence.  He  made  as  many  thoughts  as  Stuart 
Mill ;  but  his  philosophy  concerned  flesh  and  blood, 
and  was  experimental  as  to  its  method.  He  was 
a  type-hunter  among  mankind.  ^He  despised  small 
game  and  insignificant  personalities,  whether  in 
the  shape  of  dukes  or  bagmen,  letting  them  go  by 
like  seaweed;  but  show  him  a  refined  or  powerful 
face,  let  him  hear  a  plangent  or  a  penetrating  voice, 
fish  for  him  with  a  living  look  in  some  one's  eye, 
a  passionate  gesture,  a  meaning  or  ambiguous 
smile,  and  his  mind  was  instantaneously  awakened. 
"  There  was  a  man,  there  was  a  woman,"  he  seemed 
to  say,  and  he  stood  up  to  the  task  of  compre- 
hension with  the  delight  of  an  artist  in  his  art. 

And  indeed,  rightly  considered,  this  interest  of 
his  was  an  artistic  interest.  There  is  no  science 
in  the  personal  study  of  human  nature.  All  com- 
prehension is  creation;  the  woman  I  love  is  some- 


284    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

what  of  my  handiwork;  and  the  great  lover,  like 
the  great  painter,  is  he  that  can  so  embellish  his 
subject  as  to  make  her  more  than  human,  whilst 
yet  by  a  cunning  art  he  has  so  based  his  apotheosis 
on  the  nature  of  the  case  that  the  woman  can  go 
on  being  a  true  woman,  and  give  her  character  free 
play,  and  show  littleness  or  cherish  spite,  or  be 
greedy  of  common  pleasures,  and  he  continue  to 
worship  without  a  thought  of  incongruity.  To 
love  a  character  is  only  the  heroic  way  of  under- 
standing it.  When  we  love,  by  some  noble  method 
of  our  own  or  some  nobility  of  mien  or  nature  in 
the  other,  we  apprehend  the  loved  one  by  what  is 
noblest  in  ourselves.  When  we  are  merely  study- 
ing an  eccentricity,  the  method  of  our  study  is 
but  a  series  of  allowances.  To  begin  to  under- 
stand is  to  begin  to  sympathise;  for  comprehen- 
sion comes  only  when  we  have  stated  another's 
faults  and  virtues  in  terms  of  our  owrQ  Hence 
the  proverbial  toleration  of  artists  for  their  own 
evil  creations.  Hence,  too,  it  came  about  that 
Dick  Naseby,  a  high-minded  creature,  and  as 
scrupulous  and  brave  a  gentleman  as  you  would 
want  to  meet,  held  in  a  sort  of  affection  the 
various  human  creeping  things  whom  he  had  met 
and  studied. 

One  of  these  was  Mr.  Peter  Van  Tromp,  an 
English-speaking,  two-legged  animal  of  the  inter- 
national genus,  and  by  profession  of  general  and 
more  than  equivocal  utility.  Years  before  he  had 
been  a  painter  of  some  standing  in  a  colony,  and 
portraits  signed  "  Van  Tromp  "  had  celebrated  the 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    285 

greatness  of  colonial  governors  and  judges.  In 
those  days  he  had  been  married,  and  driven  his 
wife  and  infant  daughter  in  a  pony  trap.  What 
were  the  steps  of  his  declension?  No  one  ex- 
actly knew.  Here  he  was  at  least,  and  had  been, 
any  time  these  past  ten  years,  a  sort  of  dismal  para- 
site upon  the  foreigner  in  Paris. 

It  would  be  hazardous  to  specify  his  exact  in- 
dustry. Coarsely  followed,  it  would  have  merited 
a  name  grown  somewhat  unfamiliar  to  our  ears. 
Followed  as  he  followed  it,  with  a  skilful  reticence, 
in  a  kind  of  social  chiaroscuro,  it  was  still  possible 
for  the  polite  to  call  him  a  professional  painter. 
His  lair  was  in  the  Grand  Hotel  and  the  gaudi- 
est cafes.  There  he  might  be  seen  jotting  off  a 
sketch  with  an  air  of  some  inspiration;  and  he 
was  always  affable,  and  one  of  the  easiest  of  men 
to  fall  in  talk  withal.  A  conversation  usually 
ripened  into  a  peculiar  sort  of  intimacy,  and  it 
was  extraordinary  how  many  little  services  Van 
Tromp  contrived  to  render  in  the  course  of  six- 
and-thirty  hours.  He  occupied  a  position  between 
a  friend  and  a  courier,  which  made  him  worse  than 
embarrassing  to  repay.  But  those  whom  he 
obliged  could  always  buy  one  of  his  villainous 
little  pictures,  or,  where  the  favours  had  been 
prolonged  and  more  than  usually  delicate,  might 
order  and  pay  for  a  large  canvas,  with  perfect 
certainty  that  they  would  hear  no  more  of  the 
transaction. 

Among  resident  artists  he  enjoyed  the  celebrity 
of  a  non-professional  sort.     He  had  spent  more 


286    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

money  —  no  less  than  three  individual  fortunes, 
it  was  whispered  —  than  any  of  his  associates 
could  ever  hope  to  gain.  Apart  from  his  colonial 
career,  he  had  been  to  Greece  in  a  brigantine  with 
four  brass  carronades;  he  had  travelled  Europe 
in  a  chaise-and-four,  drawing  bridle  at  the  palace 
doors  of  German  princes;  queens  of  song  and 
dance  had  followed  him  like  sheep  and  paid  his 
tailor's  bills.  And  to  behold  him  now,  seeking 
small  loans  with  plaintive  condescension,  spong- 
ing for  breakfast  on  an  art  student  of  nineteen, 
a  fallen  Don  Juan  who  had  neglected  to  die  at 
the  propitious  hour,  had  a  colour  of  romance  for 
young  imaginations.  His  name  and  his  bright 
past,  seen  through  the  prism  of  whispered  gossip, 
had  gained  him  the  nickname  of  The  Admiral. 

Dick  found  him  one  day  at  the  receipt  of  custom, 
rapidly  painting  a  pair  of  hens  and  a  cock  in  a 
little  water-colour  sketching-box,  and  now  and 
then  glancing  at  the  ceiling  like  a  man  who  should 
seek  inspiration  from  the  muse.  Dick  thought  it 
remarkable  that  a  painter  should  choose  to  work 
over  an  absinthe  in  a  public  cafe,  and  looked  the 
man  over.  The  aged  rakishness  of  his  appearance 
was  set  off  by  a  youthful  costume;  he  had  dis- 
reputable grey  hair  and  a  disreputable,  sore,  red 
nose;  but  the  coat  and  the  gesture,  the  outworks 
of  the  man,  were  still  designed  for  show.  Dick 
came  up  to  his  table  and  inquired  if  he  might  look 
at  what  the  gentleman  was  doing.  No  one  was 
so  delighted  as  the  Admiral. 

"  A  bit  of  a  thing,"  said  he.    "  I  just  dash  them 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    287 

off  like  that.  I  —  I  dash  them  off,"  he  added,  with 
a  gesture. 

"  Quite  so,"  said  Dick,  who  was  appalled  by  the 
feebleness  of  the  production. 

"  Understand  me,"  continued  Van  Tromp,  "  I 
am  a  man  of  the  world.  And  yet  —  once  an  artist 
always  an  artist.  All  of  a  sudden  a  thought  takes 
me  in  the  street ;  I  become  its  prey ;  it  's  like  a 
pretty  woman ;  no  use  to  struggle ;  I  must  —  dash 
it  off." 

*  I  see,"  said  Dick. 

"  Yes,"  pursued  the  painter ;  "  it  all  comes 
easily,  easily  to  me ;  it  is  not  my  business ;  it 's  a 
pleasure.  Life  is  my  business  —  life  —  this  great 
city,  Paris  —  Paris  after  dark  —  its  lights,  its 
gardens,  its  odd  corners.  Aha ! "  he  cried,  "  to 
be  young  again!  The  heart  is  young,  but  the 
heels  are  leaden.  A  poor,  mean  business,  to  grow 
old !  Nothing  remains  but  the  coup  d'ceil,  the  con- 
templative man's  enjoyment,   Mr. ,"  and  he 

paused  for  the  name. 

"  Naseby,"  returned  Dick. 

The  other  treated  him  at  once  to  an  exciting 
beverage,  and  expatiated  on  the  pleasure  of  meet- 
ing a  compatriot  in  a  foreign  land;  to  hear  him 
you  would  have  thought  they  had  encountered  in 
Central  Africa.  Dick  had  never  found  any  one 
take  a  fancy  to  him  so  readily,  nor  show  it  in  an 
easier  or  less  offensive  manner.  He  seemed  tickled 
with  him  as  an  elderly  fellow  about  town  might 
be  tickled  by  a  pleasant  and  witty  lad;  he  indi- 
cated that  he  was  no  precisian,  but  in  his  wildest 


288    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

times  had  never  been  such  a  blade  as  he  thought 
Dick.  Dick  protested,  but  in  vain.  This  manner 
of  carrying  an  intimacy  at  the  bayonet's  point  was 
Van  Tromp's  stock-in-trade.  With  an  older  man 
he  insinuated  himself ;  with  youth  he  imposed  him- 
self, and  in  the  same  breath  imposed  an  ideal  on 
his  victim,  who  saw  that  he  must  work  up  to  it 
or  lose  the  esteem  of  this  old  and  vicious  patron. 
And  what  young  man  can  bear  to  lose  a  character 
for  vice  ? 

At  last,  as  it  grew  towards  dinner-time,  "  Do 
you  know  Paris  ?  "  asked  Van  Tromp. 

"  Not  so  well  as  you,  I  am  convinced,"  said  Dick. 

"And  so  am  I,"  returned  Van  Tromp  gaily. 

"  Paris !  My  young  friend  —  you  will  allow 
me?  —  when  you  know  Paris  as  I  do,  you  will 
have  seen  Strange  Things.  I  say  no  more;  all 
I  say  is,  Strange  Things.  We  are  men  of  the 
world,  you  and  I,  and  in  Paris,  in  the  heart  of 
civilised  existence.  This  is  an  opportunity,  Mr. 
Naseby.  Let  us  dine.  Let  me  show  you  where 
to  dine.,, 

Dick  consented.  On  the  way  to  dinner  the 
Admiral  showed  him  where  to  buy  gloves,  and 
made  him  buy  them;  where  to  buy  cigars,  and 
made  him  buy  a  vast  store,  some  of  which  he 
obligingly  accepted.  At  the  restaurant  he  showed 
him  what  to  order,  with  surprising  consequences 
in  the  bill.  What  he  made  that  night  by  his  per- 
centages it  would  be  hard  to  estimate.  And  all 
the  while  Dick  smilingly  consented,  understanding 
well  that  he  was  being  done,  but  taking  his  losses 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    289 

in  the  pursuit  of  character,  as  a  hunter  sacrifices 
his  dogs.  As  for  the  Strange  Things,  the  reader 
will  be  relieved  to  hear  that  they  were  no  stranger 
than  might  have  been  expected,  and  he  may  find 
things  quite  as  strange  without  the  expense  of  a 
Van  Tromp  for  guide.  Yet  he  was  a  guide  of 
no  mean  order,  who  made  up  for  the  poverty  of 
what  he  had  to  show  by  a  copious,  imaginative 
commentary. 

"  And  such,"  said  he  with  a  hiccup,  "  such  is 
Paris." 

"  Pooh ! "  said  Dick,  who  was  tired  of  the 
performance. 

The  Admiral  hung  an  ear,  and  looked  up  side- 
long with  a  glimmer  of  suspicion. 

"  Good-night,"  said  Dick;  "  I  'm  tired." 

"  So  English !  "  cried  Van  Tromp,  clutching 
him  by  the  hand.  "  So  English !  So  blase!  Such 
a  charming  companion!    Let  me  see  you  home." 

"  Look  here,"  returned  Dick,  "  I  have  said  good- 
night, and  now  I  'm  going.  You  're  an  amusing 
old  boy ;  I  like  you,  in  a  sense ;  but  here  's  an  end 
of  it  for  to-night.  Not  another  cigar,  not  another 
grog,  not  another  percentage  out  of  me." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon !  "  cried  the  Admiral  with 
dignity. 

"  Tut,  man !  "  said  Dick ;  "  you  're  not  offended ; 
you  're  a  man  of  the  world,  I  thought.  I  've  been 
studying  you,  and  it  's  over.  Have  I  not  paid  for 
the  lesson?    Au  revoir." 

Van  Tromp  laughed  gaily,  shook  hands  up  to 
the  elbows,  hoped  cordially  they  would  meet  again 

*9 


290    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

and  that  often,  but  looked  after  Dick  as  he  de- 
parted with  a  tremor  of  indignation.  After  that 
they  two  not  unfrequently  fell  in  each  other's  way, 
and  Dick  would  often  treat  the  old  boy  to  break- 
fast on  a  moderate  scale  and  in  a  restaurant  of 
his  own  selection.  Often,  too,  he  would  lend  Van 
Tromp  the  matter  of  a  pound,  in  view  of  that 
gentleman's  contemplated  departure  for  Australia; 
there  would  be  a  scene  of  farewell  almost  touching 
in  character,  and  a  week  or  a  month  later  they 
would  meet  on  the  same  boulevard  without  sur- 
prise or  embarrassment.  And  in  the  meantime 
Dick  learned  more  about  his  acquaintance  on  all 
sides;  heard  of  his  yacht,  his  chaise-and-four,  his 
brief  season  of  celebrity  amid  a  more  confiding 
population,  his  daughter,  of  whom  he  loved  to 
whimper  in  his  cups,  his  sponging,  parasitical, 
nameless  way  of  life;  and  with  each  new  detail 
something  that  was  not  merely  interest  nor  yet 
altogether  affection  grew  up  in  his  mind  towards 
this  disreputable  stepson  of  the  arts.  Ere  he  left 
Paris  Van  Tromp  was  one  of  those  whom  he 
entertained  to  a  farewell  supper ;  and  the  old  gen- 
tleman made  the  speech  of  the  evening,  and  then 
fell  below  the  table,  weeping,  smiling,  paralysed. 


CHAPTER  II 

A  LETTER   TO   THE   PAPERS 

OLD  Mr.  Naseby  had  the  sturdy,  untutored 
nature  of  the  upper  middle  class.  The 
universe  seemed  plain  to  him.  "  The 
thing's  right,"  he  would  say,  or  "the  thing's 
wrong  " ;  and  there  was  an  end  of  it.  There  was 
a  contained,  prophetic  energy  in  his  utterances, 
even  on  the  slightest  affairs;  he  saw  the  damned 
thing;  if  you  did  not,  it  must  be  from  perversity 
of  will;  and  this  sent  the  blood  to  his  head. 
Apart  from  this,  which  made  him  an  exacting 
companion,  he  was  one  of  the  most  upright,  hot- 
tempered  old  gentlemen  in  England.  Florid,  with 
white  hair,  the  face  of  an  old  Jupiter,  and  the 
figure  of  an  old  fox-hunter,  he  enlivened  the  Vale 
of  Thyme  from  end  to  end  on  his  big,  cantering 
chestnut. 

He  had  a  hearty  respect  for  Dick  as  a  lad  of 
parts.  Dick  had  a  respect  for  his  father  as  the 
best  of  men,  tempered  by  the  politic  revolt  of  a 
youth  who  has  to  see  to  his  own  independence. 
Whenever  the  pair  argued,  they  came  to  an  open 
rupture;  and  arguments  were  frequent,  for  they 
were  both  positive,  and  both  loved  the  work  of  the 
intelligence.     It  was  a  treat  to  hear  Mr.  Naseby 


a92    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

defending  the  Church  of  England  in  a  volley  of 
oaths,  or  supporting  ascetic  morals  with  an  en- 
thusiasm not  entirely  innocent  of  port  wine.  Dick 
used  to  wax  indignant,  and  none  the  less  so  be- 
cause, as  his  father  was  a  skilful  disputant,  he 
found  himself  not  seldom  in  the  wrong.  On  these 
occasions  he  would  redouble  in  energy,  and  declare 
that  black  was  white,  and  blue  yellow,  with  much 
conviction  and  heat  of  manner;  but  in  the  morn- 
ing such  a  licence  of  debate  weighed  upon  him  like 
a  crime,  and  he  would  seek  out  his  father,  where 
he  walked  before  breakfast  on  a  terrace  overlook- 
ing all  the  Vale  of  Thyme. 

"  I  have  to  apologise,  sir,  for  last  night " 

he  would  begin, 

"  Of  course  you  have,"  the  old  gentleman  would 
cut  in  cheerfully.  "  You  spoke  like  a  fool.  Say 
no  more  about  it." 

"  You  do  not  understand  me,  sir.  I  refer  to  a 
particular  point.  I  confess  there  is  much  force  in 
your  argument  from  the  doctrine  of  possibilities." 

"  Of  course  there  is,"  returned  his  father. 
"  Come  down  and  look  at  the  stables.  Only,"  he 
would  add,  "  bear  this  in  mind,  and  do  remember 
that  a  man  of  my  age  and  experience  knows  more 
about  what  he  is  saying  than  a  raw  boy." 

He  would  utter  the  word  "  boy "  even  more 
offensively  than  the  average  of  fathers,  and  the 
light  way  in  which  he  accepted  these  apologies 
cut  Dick  to  the  heart.  The  latter  drew  slighting 
comparisons,  and  remembered  that  he  was  the 
only  one  who  ever  apologised.     This  gave  him 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    293 

a  high  station  in  his  own  esteem,  and  thus  con- 
tributed indirectly  to  his  better  behaviour;  for 
he  was  scrupulous  as  well  as  high-spirited,  and 
prided  himself  on  nothing  more  than  on  a  just 
submission. 

So  things  went  on  until  the  famous  occasion 
when  Mr.  Naseby,  becoming  engrossed  in  securing 
the  election  of  a  sound  party  candidate  to  Parlia- 
ment, wrote  a  flaming  letter  to  the  papers.  The 
letter  had  about  every  demerit  of  party  letters  in 
general:  it  was  expressed  with  the  energy  of  a 
believer;  it  was  personal;  it  was  a  little  more 
than  half  unfair,  and  about  a  quarter  untrue.  The 
old  man  did  not  mean  to  say  what  was  untrue, 
you  may  be  sure;  but  he  had  rashly  picked  up 
gossip,  as  his  prejudice  suggested,  and  now  rashly 
launched  it  on  the  public  with  the  sanction  of  his 
name. 

"  The  Liberal  candidate,"  he  concluded,  "  is 
thus  a  public  turncoat.  Is  that  the  sort  of  man 
we  want?  He  has  been  given  the  lie,  and  has 
swallowed  the  insult.  Is  that  the  sort  of  man  we 
want?  I  answer,  No!  with  all  the  force  of  my 
conviction,  I  answer,  No!" 

And  then  he  signed  and  dated  the  letter  with  an 
amateur's  pride,  and  looked  to  be  famous  by  the 
morrow. 

Dick,  who  had  heard  nothing  of  the  matter,  was 
up  first  on  that  inauspicious  day,  and  took  the 
journal  to  an  arbour  in  the  garden.  He  found  his 
father's  manifesto  in  one  column;  and  in  another 
a  leading  article.    "  No  one  that  we  are  aware  of," 


<294    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

ran  the  arcticle,  "  had  consulted  Mr.  Naseby  on  the 
subject,  but  if  he  had  been  appealed  to  by  the  whole 
body  of  electors,  his  letter  would  be  none  the  less 
ungenerous  and  unjust  to  Mr.  Dal  ton.  We  do 
not  choose  to  give  the  lie  to  Mr.  Naseby,  for  we 
are  too  well  aware  of  the  consequences,  but  we 
shall  venture  instead  to  print  the  facts  of  both 
cases  referred  to  by  this  red-hot  partisan  in  another 
portion  of  our  issue.  Mr.  Naseby  is  of  course  a 
large  proprietor  in  our  neighbourhood :  but  fidelity 
to  facts,  decent  feeling,  and  English  grammar,  are 
all  of  them  qualities  more  important  than  the  pos- 
session of  land.     Mr.  N is  doubtless  a  great 

man;  in  his  large  gardens  and  that  half-mile  of 
greenhouses,  where  he  has  probably  ripened  his 
intellect  and  temper,  he  may  say  what  he  will  to  his 
hired  vassals,  but  (as  the  Scots  say)  — 

here 
He  maunna  think  to  domineer. 

Liberalism/'  continued  the  anonymous  journalist, 
"  is  of  too  free  and  sound  a  growth,"  etc. 

Richard  Naseby  read  the  whole  thing  from  be- 
ginning to  end;  and  a  crushing  shame  fell  upon 
his  spirit.  His  father  had  played  the  fool ;  he  had 
gone  out  noisily  to  war,  and  come  back  with  con- 
fusion. The  moment  that  his  trumpets  sounded, 
he  had  been  disgracefully  unhorsed.  There  was 
no  question  as  to  the  facts;  they  were  one  and 
all  against  the  Squire.  Richard  would  have  given 
his  ears  to  have  suppressed  the  issue;  but  as  that 
could  not  be  done,  he  had  his  horse  saddled,  and, 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    295 

furnishing  himself  with  a  convenient  staff,  rode  off 
at  once  to  Thymebury. 

The  editor  was  at  breakfast  in  a  large,  sad 
apartment.  The  absence  of  furniture,  the  extreme 
meanness  of  the  meal,  and  the  haggard,  bright- 
eyed,  consumptive  look  of  the  culprit,  unmanned 
our  hero;  but  he  clung  to  his  stick  and  was  stout 
and  warlike. 

"You  wrote  the  article  in  this  morning's 
paper  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  You  are  young  Mr.  Naseby?  I  published  it," 
replied  the  editor,  rising. 

"  My  father  is  an  old  man,"  said  Richard ;  and 
then  with  an  outburst,  "  And  a  damned  sight  finer 
fellow  than  either  you  or  Dalton ! "  He  stopped 
and  swallowed ;  he  was  determined  that  all  should 
go  with  regularity.  "  I  have  but  one  question  to 
put  to  you,  sir,"  he  resumed.  "  Granted  that  my 
father  was  misinformed,  would  it  not  have  been 
more  decent  to  withhold  the  letter  and  communicate 
with  him  in  private  ?  " 

"  Believe  me,"  returned  the  editor,  "  that  alter- 
native was  not  open  to  me.  Mr.  Naseby  told  me  in 
a  note  that  he  had  sent  his  letter  to  three  other 
journals,  and  in  fact  threatened  me  with  what  he 
called  exposure  if  I  kept  it  back  from  mine,  I  am 
really  concerned  at  what  has  happened;  I  sym- 
pathise and  approve  of  your  emotion,  young  gen- 
tleman; but  the  attack  on  Mr.  Dalton  was  gross, 
very  gross,  and  I  had  no  choice  but  to  offer  him 
my  columns  to  reply.  Party  has  its  duties,  sir," 
added   the   scribe,   kindling  as   one   who   should 


<l96    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

propose  a  sentiment ;  "  and  the  attack  was 
gross." 

Richard  stood  for  half  a  minute  digesting  the 
answer;  and  then  the  god  of  fair  play  came  up- 
permost in  his  heart,  and,  murmuring  "  Good- 
morning,"  he  made  his  escape  into  the  street. 

His  horse  was  not  hurried  on  the  way  home, 
and  he  was  late  for  breakfast.  The  Squire  was 
standing  with  his  back  to  the  fire  in  a  state  bor- 
dering on  apoplexy,  his  fingers  violently  knitted 
under  his  coat-tails.  As  Richard  came  in,  he 
opened  and  shut  his  mouth  like  a  codfish,  and  his 
eyes  protruded. 

"  You  have  seen  that,  sir  ?  "  he  cried,  nodding 
towards  the  paper. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Richard. 

"  Oh,  you  Ve  read  it,  have  you  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  I  have  read  it,"  replied  Richard,  looking 
at  his  foot. 

"  Well,"  demanded  the  old  gentleman,  "  and 
what  have  you  to  say  to  it,  sir  ?  " 

"  You  seem  to  have  been  misinformed,"  said 
Dick. 

"  Well  ?  What  then  ?  Is  your  mind  so  sterile, 
sir?  Have  you  not  a  word  of  comment?  no 
proposal  ?  " 

"  I  fear,  sir,  you  must  apologise  to  Mr.  Dalton. 
It  would  be  more  handsome,  indeed,  it  would  be 
only  just,  and  a  free  acknowledgment  would  go 
far "  Richard  paused,  no  language  appear- 
ing delicate  enough  to  suit  the  case. 

"  That  is  a  suggestion  which  should  have  come 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    297 

from  me,  sir,"  roared  the  father.  "  It  is  out  of 
place  upon  your  lips.  It  is  not  the  thought  of  a 
loyal  son.  Why,  sir,  if  my  father  had  been  plunged 
in  such  deplorable  circumstances,  I  should  have 
thrashed  the  editor  of  that  vile  sheet  within  an  inch 
of  his  life.  I  should  have  thrashed  the  man,  sir. 
It  would  have  been  the  action  of  an  ass;  but  it 
would  have  shown  that  I  had  the  blood  and  the 
natural  affections  of  a  man.  Son?  You  are  no 
son,  no  son  of  mine,  sir !  " 

"Sir!"  said  Dick. 

"  I  '11  tell  you  what  you  are,  sir,"  pursued  the 
Squire.  "  You  're  a  Benthamite.  I  disown  you. 
Your  mother  would  have  died  for  shame;  there 
was  no  modern  cant  about  your  mother;  she 
thought  —  she  said  to  me,  sir  —  I  'm  glad  she 's 
in  her  grave,  Dick  Naseby.  Misinformed!  Mis- 
informed, sir?  Have  you  no  loyalty,  no  spring, 
no  natural  affections?  Are  you  clockwork,  hey? 
Away !  This  is  no  place  for  you.  Away ! " 
(waving  his  hands  in  the  air)  "  Go  away!  Leave 
me!" 

At  this  moment  Dick  beat  a  retreat  in  a  disarray 
of  nerves,  a  whistling  and  clamour  of  his  own 
arteries,  and  in  short  in  such  a  final  bodily  disorder 
as  made  him  alike  incapable  of  speech  or  hearing. 
And  in  the  midst  of  all  this  turmoil,  a  sense 
of  unpardonable  injustice  remained  graven  in  his 
memory. 


CHAPTER   III 

IN  THE   ADMIRAL'S   NAME 

THERE  was  no  return  to  the  subject. 
Dick  and  his  father  were  henceforth  on 
terms  of  coldness.  The  upright  old  gen- 
tleman grew  more  upright  when  he  met  his  son, 
buckramed  with  immortal  anger;  he  asked  after 
Dick's  health,  and  discussed  the  weather  and  the 
crops  with  an  appalling  courtesy ;  his  pronunciation 
was  point-device,  his  voice  was  distant,  distinct, 
and  sometimes  almost  trembling  with  suppressed 
indignation. 

As  for  Dick,  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  his  life 
had  come  abruptly  to  an  end.  He  came  out  of 
his  theories  and  clevernesses ;  his  premature  man- 
of-the-worldness,  on  which  he  had  prided  himself 
on  his  travels,  "  shrank  like  a  thing  ashamed " 
before  this  real  sorrow.  Pride,  wounded  honour, 
pity,  and  respect  tussled  together  daily  in  his  heart ; 
and  now  he  was  within  an  ace  of  throwing  him- 
self upon  his  father's  mercy,  and  now  of  slipping 
forth  at  night  and  coming  back  no  more  to  Naseby 
House.  He  suffered  from  the  sight  of  his  father, 
nay,  even  from  the  neighbourhood  of  this  familiar 
valley,  where  every  corner  had  its  legend,  and 
he  was  besieged  with  memories  of  childhood.     If 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    299 

he  fled  into  a  new  land,  and  among  none  but 
strangers,  he  might  escape  his  destiny,  who  knew  ? 
and  begin  again  light-heartedly.  From  that  chief 
peak  of  the  hills,  that  now  and  then,  like  an  up- 
lifted finger,  shone  in  an  arrow  of  sunlight  through 
the  broken  clouds,  the  shepherd  in  clear  weather 
might  perceive  the  shining  of  the  sea.  There,  he 
thought,  was  hope.  But  his  heart  failed  him  when 
he  saw  the  Squire;  and  he  remained.  His  fate 
was  not  that  of  the  voyager  by  sea  and  land;  he 
was  to  travel  in  the  spirit,  and  begin  his  journey 
sooner  than  he  supposed. 

For  it  chanced  one  day  that  his  walk  led  him 
into  a  portion  of  the  uplands  which  was  almost 
unknown  to  him.  Scrambling  through  some  rough 
woods,  he  came  out  upon  a  moorland  reaching 
towards  the  hills.  A  few  lofty  Scots  firs  grew 
hard  by  upon  a  knoll;  a  clear  fountain  near  the 
foot  of  the  knoll  sent  up  a  miniature  streamlet 
which  meandered  in  the  heather.  A  shower  had 
just  skimmed  by,  but  now  the  sun  shone  brightly, 
and  the  air  smelt  of  the  pines  and  the  grass.  On 
a  stone  under  the  trees  sat  a  young  lady  sketching. 
We  have  learned  to  think  of  women  in  a  sort  of 
symbolic  transfiguration,  based  on  clothes;  and 
one  of  the  readiest  ways  in  which  we  conceive  our 
mistress  is  as  a  composite  thing,  principally  petti- 
coats. But  humanity  has  triumphed  over  clothes; 
the  look,  the  touch  of  a  dress  has  become  alive; 
and  the  woman  who  stitched  herself  into  these 
material  integuments  has  now  permeated  right 
through  and  gone  out  to  the  tip  of  her  skirt.     It 


300    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

was  only  a  black  dress  that  caught  Dick  Naseby's 
eye;  but  it  took  possession  of  his  mind,  and  all 
other  thoughts  departed.  He  drew  near  and  the 
girl  turned  around.  Her  face  startled  him ;  it  was 
a  face  he  wanted;  and  he  took  it  in  at  once  like 
breathing  air. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  taking  off  his 
hat,  "  you  are  sketching." 

"  Oh ! "  she  exclaimed,  "  for  my  own  amuse- 
ment.    I  despise  the  thing." 

"  Ten  to  one  you  do  yourself  injustice,"  re- 
turned Dick.  "  Besides,  it 's  a  freemasonry.  I 
sketch  myself,  and  you  know  what  that  implies." 

"No.    What?"  she  asked. 

"  Two  things,"  he  answered.  "  First,  that  I  am 
no  very  difficult  critic;  and  second,  that  I  have  a 
right  to  see  your  picture." 

She  covered  the  block  with  both  her  hands. 
"  Oh  no,"  she  said ;  "lam  ashamed." 

"  Indeed,  I  might  give  you  a  hint,"  said  Dick. 
"  Although  no  artist  myself,  I  have  known  many ; 
in  Paris  I  had  many  for  friends,  and  used  to  prowl 
among  studios." 

"  In  Paris  ?  "  she  cried,  with  a  leap  of  light  into 
her  eyes.    "  Did  you  ever  meet  Mr.  Van  Tromp?  " 

"  I  ?  Yes.  Why,  you  are  not  the  Admiral's 
daughter,  are  you  ?  " 

"The  Admiral?  Do  they  call  him  that?"  she 
cried.  "  Oh,  how  nice,  how  nice  of  them !  It  is 
the  younger  men  who  call  him  so,  is  it  not  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Dick,  somewhat  heavily. 

"  You  can  understand  now,"  she  said,  with  an 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    301 

unspeakable  accent  of  contented  and  noble-minded 
pride,  "  why  it  is  I  do  not  choose  to  show  my 
sketch.  Van  Tromp's  daughter!  The  Admiral's 
daughter !  I  delight  in  that  name.  The  Admiral ! 
And  so  you  know  my  father  ?  " 

"  Well/'  said  Dick,  "  I  met  him  often ;  we  were 
even  intimate.  He  may  have  mentioned  my  name 
—  Naseby." 

"  He  writes  so  little.  He  is  so  busy,  so  devoted 
to  his  art!  I  have  had  a  half  wish,"  she  added, 
laughing,  "that  my  father  was  a  plainer  man, 
whom  I  could  help  —  to  whom  I  could  be  a  credit ; 
but  only  sometimes,  you  know,  and  with  only  half 
my  heart.  For  a  great  painter!  You  have  seen 
his  works  ?  " 

"  I  have  seen  some  of  them,"  returned  Dick  ; 
"  they  —  they  are  very  nice." 

She  laughed  aloud.  "Nice?"  she  repeated. 
"  I  see  you  don't  care  much  for  art." 

"  Not  much,"  he  admitted ;  "  but  I  know  that 
many  people  are  glad  to  buy  Mr.  Van  Tromp's 
pictures." 

"  Call  him  the  Admiral !  "  she  cried.  "  It  sounds 
kindly  and  familiar;  and  I  like  to  think  that 
he  is  appreciated  and  looked  up  to  by  young 
painters.  He  has  not  always  been  appreciated; 
he  had  a  cruel  life  for  many  years;  and  when 
I  think  "  —  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes  —  "  when 
I  think  of  that,  I  feel  inclined  to  be  a  fool," 
she  broke  off.  "  And  now  I  shall  go  home.  You 
have  filled  me  full  of  happiness;  for  think,  Mr. 
Naseby,  I  have  not  seen  my  father  since  I  was 


302    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

six  years  old;  and  yet  he  is  in  my  thoughts  all 
day!  You  must  come  and  call  on  me;  my 
aunt  will  be  delighted,  I  am  sure;  and  then  you 
will  tell  me  all  —  all  about  my  father,  will  you 
not?" 

Dick  helped  her  to  get  her  sketching  traps  to- 
gether ;  and  when  all  was  ready  she  gave  Dick  her 
hand  and  a  frank  return  of  pressure. 

"  You  are  my  father's  friend/'  she  said ;  "  we 
shall  be  great  friends  too.  You  must  come  and  see 
me  soon.,, 

Then  she  was  gone  down  the  hillside  at  a  run; 
and  Dick  stood  by  himself  in  a  state  of  some  bewil- 
derment and  even  distress.  There  were  elements 
of  laughter  in  the  business;  but  the  black  dress, 
and  the  face  that  belonged  to  it,  and  the  hand  that 
he  had  held  in  his,  inclined  him  to  a  serious  view. 
What  was  he,  under  the  circumstances,  called  upon 
to  do?  Perhaps  to  avoid  the  girl  ?  Well,  he  would 
think  about  that.  Perhaps  to  break  the  truth  to 
her?  Why,  ten  to  one,  such  was  her  infatuation, 
he  would  fail.  Perhaps  to  keep  up  the  illusion,  to 
colour  the  raw  facts;  to  help  her  to  false  ideas, 
while  yet  not  plainly  stating  falsehoods?  Well, 
he  would  see  about  that;  he  would  also  see  about 
avoiding  the  girl.  He  saw  about  this  last  so  well, 
that  the  next  afternoon  beheld  him  on  his  way  to 
visit  her. 

In  the  meantime  the  girl  had  gone  straight  home, 
light  as  a  bird,  tremulous  with  joy,  to  the  little 
cottage  where  she  lived  alone  with  a  maiden  aunt ; 
and  to  that  lady,  a  grim,  sixty  years  old  Scots- 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    303 

woman,  with  a  nodding  head,  communicated  news 
of  her  encounter  and  invitation. 

"  A  friend  of  his  ?  "  cried  the  aunt.  "  What  like 
is  he?    What  did  he  say  was  his  name?  " 

She  was  dead  silent,  and  stared  at  the  old  woman 
darkling.  Then  very  slowly,  "  I  said  he  was  my 
father's  friend;  I  have  invited  him  to  my  house, 
and  come  he  shall,"  she  said;  and  with  that  she 
walked  off  to  her  room,  where  she  sat  staring  at 
the  wall  all  the  evening.  Miss  M'Glashan,  for 
that  was  the  aunt's  name,  read  a  large  Bible  in  the 
kitchen  with  some  of  the  joys  of  martyrdom. 

It  was  perhaps  half-past  three  when  Dick  pre- 
sented himself,  rather  scrupulously  dressed,  before 
the  cottage  door;  he  knocked,  and  a  voice  bade 
him  enter.  The  kitchen,  which  opened  directly 
off  the  garden,  was  somewhat  darkened  by  foliage ; 
but  he  could  see  her  as  she  approached  from  the 
far  end  to  meet  him.  This  second  sight  of  her 
surprised  him.  Her  strong  black  brows  spoke 
of  temper  easily  aroused  and  hard  to  quiet;  her 
mouth  was  small,  nervous,  and  weak;  there  was 
something  dangerous  and  sulky  underlying,  in  her 
nature,  much  that  was  honest,  compassionate,  and 
even  noble. 

"  My  father's  name,"  she  said,  "  has  made  you 
very  welcome." 

And  she  gave  him  her  hand  with  a  sort  of  curt- 
sey. It  was  a  pretty  greeting,  although  somewhat 
mannered ;  and  Dick  felt  himself  among  the  gods. 
She  led  him  through  the  kitchen  to  a  parlour,  and 
presented  him  to  Miss  M'Glashan. 


3o4    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

"  Esther,"  said  the  aunt,  "  see  and  make  Mr. 
Naseby  his  tea." 

As  soon  as  the  girl  was  gone  upon  this  hospi- 
table intent,  the  old  woman  crossed  the  room  and 
came  quite  near  to  Dick  as  if  in  menace. 

"  Ye  know  that  man  ?  "  she  asked,  in  an  impe- 
rious whisper. 

"Mr.  Van  Tromp?"  said  Dick.  "Yes;  I 
know  him." 

"Well,  and  what  brings  ye  here?"  she  said. 
"  I  could  n't  save  the  mother  —  her  that  *s  dead  — 
but  the  bairn !  "  She  had  a  note  in  her  voice  that 
filled  poor  Dick  with  consternation.  "  Man,"  she 
went  on,  "  what  is  it  now  ?    Is  it  money?  " 

"  My  dear  lady,"  said  Dick,  "  I  think  you  misin- 
terpret my  position.  I  am  young  Mr.  Naseby  of 
Naseby  House.  My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Van 
Tromp  is  really  very  slender;  I  am  only  afraid 
that  Miss  Van  Tromp  has  exaggerated  our  inti- 
macy in  her  own  imagination.  I  know  positively 
nothing  of  his  private  affairs,  and  do  not  care  to 
know.    I  met  him  casually  in  Paris  —  that  is  all." 

Miss  M'Glashan  drew  a  long  breath.  "  In 
Paris  ?  "  she  said.  "  Well,  and  what  do  you  think 
of  him  ?  —  what  do  ye  think  of  him  ?  "  she  re- 
peated, with  a  different  scansion,  as  Richard,  who 
had  not  much  taste  for  such  a  question,  kept  her 
waiting  for  an  answer. 

"  I  found  him  a  very  agreeable  companion,"  he 
said. 

"  Ay,"  said  she,  "  did  ye !  And  how  does  he  win 
his  bread  ?  " 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    305 

"  I  fancy,"  he  gasped,  "  that  Mr.  Van  Tromp 
has  many  generous  friends.' ' 

"  I  '11  warrant !  "  she  sneered ;  and  before  Dick 
could  find  more  to  say,  she  was  gone  from  the 
room. 

Esther  returned  with  the  tea-things,  and  sat 
down. 

"  Now,"  she  said  cosily,  "  tell  me  all  about  my 
father." 

"  He  "  —  stammered  Dick  —  "  he  is  a  very 
agreeable  companion." 

"  I  shall  begin  to  think  it  is  more  than  you  are, 
Mr.  Naseby,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh.  "  I  am  his 
daughter,  you  forget.  Begin  at  the  beginning, 
and  tell  me  all  you  have  seen  of  him,  all  he  said 
and  all  you  answered.  You  must  have  met  some- 
where; begin  with  that." 

So  with  that  he  began:  how  he  had  found  the 
Admiral  painting  in  a  cafe ;  how  his  art  so  possessed 
him  that  he  could  not  wait  till  he  got  home  to  — 
well,  to  dash  off  his  idea;  how  (this  in  reply  to  a 
question)  his  idea  consisted  of  a  cock  crowing  and 
two  hens  eating  corn;  how  he  was  fond  of  cocks 
and  hens;  how  this  did  not  lead  him  to  neglect 
more  ambitious  forms  of  art ;  how  he  had  a  picture 
in  his  studio  of  a  Greek  subject  which  was  said  to 
be  remarkable  from  several  points  of  view;  how 
no  one  had  seen  it  nor  knew  the  precise  site  of  the 
studio  in  which  it  was  being  vigorously  though 
secretly  confected;  how  (in  answer  to  a  sugges- 
tion) this  shyness  was  common  to  the  Admiral, 
Michelangelo,  and  others;    how  they   (Dick  and 

20     „ 


306    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

Van  Tromp)  had  struck  up  an  acquaintance  at 
once,  and  dined  together  that  same  night;  how  he 
(the  Admiral)  had  once  given  money  to  a  beggar; 
how  he  spoke  with  effusion  of  his  little  daughter; 
how  he  had  once  borrowed  money  to  send  her  a 
doll  —  a  trait  worthy  of  Newton  —  she  being  then 
in  her  nineteenth  year  at  least;  how,  if  the  doll 
never  arrived  (which  it  appeared  it  never  did),  the 
trait  was  only  more  characteristic  of  the  highest 
order  of  creative  intellect ;  how  he  was  —  no,  not 
beautiful  —  striking,  yes,  Dick  would  go  so  far, 
decidedly  striking  in  appearance;  how  his  boots 
were  made  to  lace  and  his  coat  was  black,  not  cut- 
away, a  frock ;  and  so  on,  and  so  on  by  the  yard. 
It  was  astonishing  how  few  lies  were  necessary. 
After  all,  people  exaggerated  the  difficulty  of  life. 
A  little  steering,  just  a  touch  of  the  rudder  now  and 
then,  and  with  a  willing  listener  there  is  no  limit 
to  the  domain  of  equivocal  speech.  Sometimes 
Miss  M'Glashan  made  a  freezing  sojourn  in  the 
parlour;  and  then  the  task  seemed  unaccountably 
more  difficult;  but  to  Esther,  who  was  all  eyes 
and  ears,  her  face  alight  with  interest,  his  stream 
of  language  flowed  without  break  or  stumble,  and 
his  mind  was  ever  fertile  in  ingenious  evasions 
and 

What  an  afternoon  it  was  for  Esther! 

"  Ah !  "  she  cried  at  last,  "  it 's  good  to  hear  all 
this!  My  aunt,  you  should  know,  is  narrow  and 
too  religious;  she  cannot  understand  an  artist's 
life.  It  does  not  frighten  me,"  she  added  grandly ; 
"  I  am  an  artist's  daughter." 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    307 

With  that  speech,  Dick  consoled  himself  for  his 
imposture;  she  was  not  deceived  so  grossly  after 
all;  and  then,  if  a  fraud,  was  not  the  fraud  piety 
itself?  —  and  what  could  be  more  obligatory  than 
to  keep  alive  in  the  heart  of  a  daughter  that  filial 
trust  and  honour  which,  even  although  misplaced, 
became  her  like  a  jewel  of  the  mind?  There 
might  be  another  thought,  a  shade  of  cowardice, 
a  selfish  desire  to  please;  poor  Dick  was  merely 
human ;  and  what  would  you  have  had  him  do  ? 


CHAPTER   IV 

ESTHER   ON   THE   FILIAL   RELATION 

A  MONTH  later  Dick  and  Esther  met  at  the 
stile  beside  the  cross  roads;  had  there 
L  been  any  one  to  see  them  but  the  birds 
and  summer  insects,  it  would  have  been  remarked 
that  they  met  after  a  different  fashion  from  the 
day  before.  Dick  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  their 
lips  were  set  together  for  a  long  while.  Then  he 
held  her  at  arm's  length,  and  they  looked  straight 
into  each  other's  eyes. 

"  Esther !  "  he  said,  —  you  should  have  heard 
his  voice. 

"Dick!"  said  she. 

"My  darling !" 

It  was  some  time  before  they  started  for  their 
walk;  he  kept  an  arm  about  her,  and  their  sides 
were  close  together  as  they  walked;  the  sun,  the 
birds,  the  west  wind  running  among  the  trees,  a 
pressure,  a  look,  the  grasp  tightening  round  a  single 
finger,  these  things  stood  them  in  lieu  of  thought 
and  filled  their  hearts  with  joy.  The  path  they  were 
following  led  them  through  a  wood  of  pine-trees 
carpeted  with  heather  and  blueberry,  and  upon  this 
pleasant  carpet  Dick,  not  without  some  seriousness, 
made  her  sit  down. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    309 

"  Esther !  "  he  began,  "  there  is  something  you 
ought  to  know.  You  know  my  father  is  a  rich  man, 
and  you  would  think,  now  that  we  love  each  other, 
we  might  marry  when  we  pleased.  But  I  fear, 
darling,  we  may  have  long  to  wait  and  shall  want 
all  our  courage. " 

"  I  have  courage  for  anything,"  she  said,  "  I 
have  all  I  want ;  with  you  and  my  father,  I  am  so 
well  off,  and  waiting  is  made  so  happy,  that  I  could 
wait  a  lifetime  and  not  weary." 

He  had  a  sharp  pang  at  the  mention  of  the  Ad- 
miral. "  Hear  me  out,"  he  continued.  "  I  ought 
to  have  told  you  this  before;  but  it  is  a  thought 
I  shrink  from ;  if  it  were  possible,  I  should  not  tell 
you  even  now.  My  poor  father  and  I  are  scarce  on 
speaking  terms." 

"  Your  father,"  she  repeated,  turning  pale. 

"  It  must  sound  strange  to  you ;  but  yet  I  can- 
not think  I  am  to  blame,"  he  said.  "  I  will  tell  you 
how  it  happened." 

"  O  Dick ! "  she  said,  when  she  had  heard  him 
to  an  end.  "  How  brave  you  are,  and  how  proud ! 
Yet  I  would  not  be  proud  with  a  father.  I  would 
tell  him  all." 

"  What !  "  cried  Dick,  "  go  in  months  after,  and 
brag  that  I  had  meant  to  thrash  the  man,  and  then 
did  n't  ?  And  why  ?  Because  my  father  had  made 
a  bigger  ass  of  himself  than  I  supposed.  My  dear, 
that 's  nonsense." 

She  winced  at  his  words  and  drew  away.  "  But 
then  that  is  all  he  asks,"  she  pleaded.  "  If  he  only 
knew  that  you  had  felt  that  impulse,  it  would  make 


310    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

him  so  proud  and  happy.  He  would  see  you  were 
his  own  son  after  all,  and  had  the  same  thoughts 
and  the  same  chivalry  of  spirit.  And  then  you  did 
yourself  injustice  when  you  spoke  just  now.  It  was 
because  the  editor  was  weak  and  poor  and  excused 
himself,  that  you  repented  your  first  determination. 
Had  he  been  a  big  red  man,  with  whiskers,  you 
would  have  beaten  him  —  you  know  you  would  — 
if  Mr.  Naseby  had  been  ten  times  more  committed. 
Do  you  think,  if  you  can  tell  it  to  me,  and  I  un- 
derstand at  once,  that  it  would  be  more  difficult  to 
tell  it  to  your  own  father,  or  that  he  would  not  be 
more  ready  to  sympathise  with  you  than  I  am? 
And  I  love  you,  Dick ;  but  then  he  is  your  father." 

"  My  dear,"  said  Dick  desperately,  "  you  do  not 
understand;  you  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be 
treated  with  daily  want  of  comprehension  and 
daily  small  injustices,  through  childhood  and  boy- 
hood and  manhood,  until  you  despair  of  a  hearing, 
until  the  thing  rides  you  like  a  nightmare,  until  you 
almost  hate  the  sight  of  the  man  you  love,  and 
who  's  your  father  after  all.  In  short,  Esther,  you 
don't  know  what  it  is  to  have  a  father,  and  that 's 
what  blinds  you." 

"  I  see,"  she  said  musingly,  "  you  mean  that  I 
am  fortunate  in  my  father.  But  I  am  not  so  fortu- 
nate after  all ;  you  forget,  I  do  not  know  him ;  it 
is  you  who  know  him;  he  is  already  more  your 
father  than  mine."  And  here  she  took  his  hand. 
Dick's  heart  had  grown  as  cold  as  ice.  "  But  I  am 
sorry  for  you,  too,"  she  continued,  "  it  must  be 
very  sad  and  lonely." 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE   311 

"  You  misunderstand  me,"  said  Dick  chokingly, 
"  My  father  is  the  best  man  I  know  in  all  this 
world;  he  is  worth  a  hundred  of  me,  only  he 
does  n't  understand  me,  and  he  can't  be  made  to." 

There  was  a  silence  for  awhile.  "  Dick,"  she 
began  again,  "  I  am  going  to  ask  a  favour ;  it 's 
the  first  time  since  you  said  you  loved  me.  May  I 
see  your  father  —  see  him  pass,  I  mean,  where  he 
will  not  observe  me?  " 

"Why?"  asked  Dick. 

"  It  is  a  fancy ;  you  forget,  I  am  romantic  about 
fathers." 

The  hint  was  enough  for  Dick;  he  consented 
with  haste,  and  full  of  hang-dog  penitence  and  dis- 
gust, took  her  down  by  a  back  way  and  planted  her 
in  the  shrubbery,  whence  she  might  see  the  Squire 
ride  by  to  dinner.  There  they  both  sat  silent,  but 
holding  hands,  for  nearly  half  an  hour.  At  last 
the  trotting  of  a  horse  sounded  in  the  distance,  the 
park  gates  opened  with  a  clang,  and  then  Mr. 
Naseby  appeared,  with  stooping  shoulders  and  a 
heavy,  bilious  countenance,  languidly  rising  to  the 
trot.  Esther  recognised  him  at  once;  she  had 
often  seen  him  before,  though  with  her  huge  in- 
difference for  all  that  lay  outside  the  circle  of  her 
love,  she  had  never  so  much  as  wondered  who 
he  was;  but  now  she  recognised  him,  and  found 
him  ten  years  older,  leaden  and  springless,  and 
stamped  by  an  abiding  sorrow. 

"  O  Dick,  Dick !  "  she  said,  and  the  tears  began 
to  shine  upon  her  face  as  she  hid  it  in  his  bosom ; 
his  own  fell  thickly,  too.     They  had  a  sad  walk 


312    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

home,  and  that  night,  full  of  love  and  good  counsel, 
Dick  exerted  every  art  to  please  his  father,  to  con- 
vince him  of  his  respect  and  affection,  to  heal  up 
this  breach  of  kindness,  and  reunite  two  hearts. 
But  alas !  the  Squire  was  sick  and  peevish ;  he  had 
been  all  day  glooming  over  Dick's  estrangement  — 
for  so  he  put  it  to  himself  —  and  now  with  growls, 
cold  words,  and  the  cold  shoulder,  he  beat  off 
all  advances,  and  entrenched  himself  in  a  just 
resentment. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   PRODIGAL   FATHER   MAKES   HIS 
DEBUT   AT   HOME 

THAT  took  place  upon  a  Thursday.  On 
the  Thursday  following,  as  Dick  was 
walking  by  appointment,  earlier  than 
usual,  in  the  direction  of  the  cottage,  he  was  ap- 
palled to  meet  in  the  lane  a  fly  from  Thymebury, 
containing  the  human  form  of  Miss  M'Glashan. 
The  lady  did  not  deign  to  remark  him  in  her 
passage;  her  face  was  suffused  with  tears,  and 
expressed  much  concern  for  the  packages  by  which 
she  was  surrounded.  He  stood  still,  and  asked 
himself  what  this  circumstance  might  portend.  It 
was  so  beautiful  a  day  that  he  was  loth  to  forecast 
evil,  yet  something  must  perforce  have  happened 
at  the  cottage,  and  that  of  a  decisive  nature;  for 
here  was  Miss  M'Glashan  on  her  travels,  with  a 
small  patrimony  in  brown  paper  parcels,  and  the 
old  lady's  bearing  implied  hot  battle  and  unqualified 
defeat.  Was  the  house  to  be  closed  against  him? 
Was  Esther  left  alone,  or  had  some  new  protector 
made  his  appearance  from  among  the  millions  of 
Europe?  It  is  the  character  of  love  to  loathe  the 
near  relatives  of  the  loved  one;  chapters  in  the 
history   of   the   human   race   have    justified   this 


3H    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

feeling,  and  the  conduct  of  uncles,  in  particular,  has 
frequently  met  with  censure  from  the  independent 
novelist.  Miss  M'Glashan  was  now  seen  in  the 
rosy  colours  of  regret;  whoever  succeeded  her, 
Dick  felt  the  change  would  be  for  the  worse.  He 
hurried  forward  in  this  spirit;  his  anxiety  grew 
upon  him  with  every  step ;  as  he  entered  the  garden 
a  voice  fell  upon  his  ear,  and  he  was  once  more 
arrested,  not  this  time  by  doubt,  but  by  an  indubi- 
table certainty  of  ill. 

The  thunderbolt  had  fallen;  the  Admiral  was 
here. 

Dick  would  have  retreated,  in  the  panic  terror 
of  the  moment;  but  Esther  kept  a  bright  look-out 
when  her  lover  was  expected.  In  a  twinkling  she 
was  by  his  side,  brimful  of  news  and  pleasure,  too 
glad  to  notice  his  embarrassment,  and  in  one  of 
those  golden  transports  of  exultation  which  tran- 
scend not  only  words  but  caresses.  She  took  him 
by  the  end  of  the  fingers  (reaching  forward  to 
take  them,  for  her  great  preoccupation  was  to 
save  time),  she  drew  him  towards  her,  pushed  him 
past  her  in  the  door,  and  planted  him  face  to  face 
with  Mr.  Van  Tromp,  in  a  suit  of  French  country 
velveteens  and  with  a  remarkable  carbuncle  on 
his  nose.  Then,  as  though  this  was  the  end  of 
what  she  could  endure  in  the  way  of  joy,  Esther 
turned  and  ran  out  of  the  room. 

The  two  men  remained  looking  at  each  other 
with  some  confusion  on  both  sides.  Van  Tromp 
was  naturally  the  first  to  recover;  he  put  out  his 
hand  with  a  fine  gesture. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    315 

"  And  you  know  my  little  lass,  my  Esther  ?  "  he 
said.  "  This  is  pleasant,  this  is  what  I  have  con- 
ceived of  home.  A  strange  word  for  the  old  rover ; 
but  we  all  have  a  taste  for  home  and  the  homelike, 
disguise  it  how  we  may.  It  has  brought  me  here, 
Mr.  Naseby,"  he  concluded,  with  an  intonation 
that  would  have  made  his  fortune  on  the  stage, 
so  just,  so  sad,  so  dignified,  so  like  a  man  of  the 
world  and  a  philosopher,  "  and  you  see  a  man  who 
is  content." 

"  I  see,"  said  Dick. 

"  Sit  down,"  continued  the  parasite,  setting  the 
example.  "  Fortune  has  gone  against  me.  (I  am 
just  sirrupping  a  little  brandy  —  after  my  jour- 
ney.) I  was  going  down,  Mr.  Naseby;  between 
you  and  me  I  was  decave;  I  borrowed  fifty 
francs,  smuggled  my  valise  past  the  concierge 
—  a  work  of  considerable  tact  —  and  here  I 
am!" 

"  Yes,"  said  Dick ;  "  and  here  you  are."  He 
was  quite  idiotic. 

Esther  at  this  moment  re-entered  the  room. 

"  Are  you  glad  to  see  him  ?  "  she  whispered  in 
liis  ear,  the  pleasure  in  her  voice  almost  bursting 
through  the  whisper  into  song. 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Dick;  "very!" 

"  I  knew  you  would  be,"  she  replied ;  "  I  told 
him  how  you  loved  him." 

"  Help  yourself,"  said  the  Admiral,  "  help  your- 
self;  and  let  us  drink  to  a  new  existence." 

"To  a  new  existence,"  repeated  Dick;  and  he 
raised  the  tumbler  to  his  lips,  but  set  it  down 


316    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

untasted.  He  had  had  enough  of  novelties  for  one 
day. 

Esther  was  sitting  on  a  stool  beside  her  father's 
feet,  holding  her  knees  in  her  arms,  and  looking 
with  pride  from  one  to  the  other  of  her  two  visitors. 
Her  eyes  were  so  bright  that  you  were  never  sure 
if  there  were  tears  in  them  or  not ;  little  voluptuous 
shivers  ran  about  her  body ;  sometimes  she  nestled 
her  chin  into  her  throat,  sometimes  threw  back 
her  head  with  ecstasy;  in  a  word,  she  was  in  that 
state  when  it  is  said  of  people  that  they  cannot  con- 
tain themselves  for  happiness.  It  would  be  hard 
to  exaggerate  the  agony  of  Richard. 

And,  in  the  meantime,  Van  Tromp  ran  on 
interminably. 

"  I  never  forget  a  friend/'  said  he,  "  nor  yet  an 
enemy :  of  the  latter  I  never  had  but  two  —  myself 
and  the  public;  and  I  fancy  I  have  had  my  ven- 
geance pretty  freely  out  of  both."  He  chuckled. 
"  But  those  days  are  done.  Van  Tromp  is  no  more. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  successes,  —  I  believe  you 
know  I  had  successes,  —  to  which  we  shall  refer 
no  further,"  pulling  down  his  neckcloth  with  a 
smile.  "  That  man  exists  no  more :  by  an  exer- 
cise of  will  I  have  destroyed  him.  There  is  some- 
thing like  it  in  the  poets.  First,  a  brilliant  and 
conspicuous  career  —  the  observed,  I  may  say,  of 
all  observers,  including  the  bum-baily:  and  then, 
presto!  a  quiet,  sly,  old,  rustic  bonhomme,  culti- 
vating roses.     In  Paris,  Mr.  Naseby " 

"  Call  him  Richard,  father,"  said  Esther. 

"  Richard,  if  he  will  allow  me.    Indeed,  we  are 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    317 

old  friends,  and  now  near  neighbours;  and,  a 
propos,  how  are  we  off  for  neighbours,  Richard? 
The  cottage  stands,  I  think,  upon  your  father's 
land,  a  family  which  I  respect  —  and  the  wood,  I 
understand,  is  Lord  Trevanion's.  Not  that  I  care ; 
I  am  an  old  Bohemian.  I  have  cut  society  with  a 
cut  direct;  I  cut  it  when  I  was  prosperous,  and 
now  I  reap  my  reward,  and  can  cut  it  with  dignity 
in  my  declension.  These  are  our  little  amours 
propres,  my  daughter ;  your  father  must  respect 
himself.    Thank  you,  yes ;  just  a  leetle,  leetle,  tiny 

—  thanks,  thanks ;  you  spoil  me.  But,  as  I  was  say- 
ing, Richard,  or  was  about  to  say,  my  daughter  has 
been  allowed  to  rust ;  her  aunt  was  a  mere  duenna ; 
hence,  in  parenthesis,  Richard,  her  distrust  of  me; 
my  nature  and  that  of  the  duenna  are  poles  asunder 

—  poles!  But,  now  that  I  am  here,  now  that  I 
have  given  up  the  fight,  and  live  henceforth  for 
one  only  of  my  works  —  I  have  the  modesty  to 
say  it  is  my  best  —  my  daughter  —  well,  we  shall 
put  all  that  to  rights.    The  neighbours,  Richard  ?  " 

Dick  was  understood  to  say  that  there  were  many 
good  families  in  the  Vale  of  Thyme. 

"  You  shall  introduce  us,"  said  the  Admiral. 

Dick's  shirt  was  wet;  he  made  a  lumbering  ex- 
cuse to  go ;  which  Esther  explained  to  herself  by  a 
fear  of  intrusion,  and  so  set  down  to  the  merit  side 
of  Dick's  account,  while  she  proceeded  to  detain 
him. 

"  Before  our  walk  ?  "  she  cried.  "  Never !  I 
must  have  my  walk." 

"Let  us  all  go,"  said  the  Admiral,  rising. 


318    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

"  You  do  not  know  that  you  are  wanted,"  she 
cried,  leaning  on  his  shoulder  with  a  caress.  "  I 
might  wish  to  speak  to  my  old  friend  about  my 
new  father.  But  you  shall  come  to-day,  you  shall 
do  all  you  want;  I  have  set  my  heart  on  spoiling 
you." 

"  I  will  take  just  one  drop  more,"  said  the  Ad- 
miral, stooping  to  help  himself  to  brandy.  "  It 
is  surprising  how  this  journey  has  fatigued  me. 
But  I  am  growing  old,  I  am  growing  old,  I  am 
growing  old,  and  —  I  regret  to  add  —  bald." 

He  cocked  a  white  wide-awake  coquettishly 
upon  his  head  —  the  habit  of  the  lady-killer  clung 
to  him;  and  Esther  had  already  thrown  on  her 
hat,  and  was  ready,  while  he  was  still  studying  the 
result  in  a  mirror:  the  carbuncle  had  somewhat 
painfully  arrested  his  attention. 

"  We  are  papa  now ;  we  must  be  respectable," 
he  said  to  Dick,  in  explanation  of  his  dandyism: 
and  then  he  went  to  a  bundle  and  chose  himself 
a  staff.  Where  were  the  elegant  canes  of  his 
Parisian  epoch?  This  was  a  support  for  age,  and 
designed  for  rustic  scenes.  Dick  began  to  see 
and  appreciate  the  man's  enjoyment  in  a  new  part, 
when  he  saw  how  carefully  he  had  "  made  it  up." 
He  had  invented  a  gait  for  this  first  country  stroll 
with  his  daughter,  which  was  admirably  in  key. 
He  walked  with  fatigue ;  he  leaned  upon  the  staff ; 
he  looked  round  him  with  a  sad,  smiling  sympathy 
on  all  that  he  beheld ;  he  even  asked  the  name  of 
a  plant,  and  rallied  himself  gently  for  an  old  town- 
bird,  ignorant  of  nature.     "  This  country  life  will 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    319 

make  me  young  again,"  he  sighed.  They  reached 
the  top  of  the  hill  towards  the  first  hour  of  evening ; 
the  sun  was  descending  heaven,  the  colour  had  all 
drawn  into  the  west;  the  hills  were  modelled  in 
their  least  contour  by  the  soft,  slanting  shine ;  and 
the  wide  moorlands,  veined  with  glens  and  hazel- 
woods,  ran  west  and  north  in  a  hazy  glory  of  light. 
Then  the  painter  awakened  in  Van  Tromp. 

"Gad,  Dick,"  he  cried,  "what  value!" 

An  ode  in  four  hundred  lines  would  not  have 
seemed  so  touching  to  Esther ;  her  eyes  rilled  with 
happy  tears;  yes,  here  was  the  father  of  whom 
she  had  dreamed,  whom  Dick  had  described ; 
simple,  enthusiastic,  unworldly,  kind,  a  painter  at 
heart,  and  a  fine  gentleman  in  manner. 

And  just  then  the  Admiral  perceived  a  house  by 
the  wayside,  and  something  depending  over  the 
house  door  which  might  be  construed  as  a  sign 
by  the  hopeful  and  thirsty. 

"  Is  that,"  he  asked,  pointing  with  his  stick,  "  an 
inn?" 

There  was  a  marked  change  in  his  voice,  as 
though  he  attached  some  importance  to  the  in- 
quiry :  Esther  listened,  hoping  she  should  hear  wit 
or  wisdom. 

Dick  said  it  was. 

"  You  know  it  ?  "  inquired  the  Admiral. 

"  I  have  passed  it  a  hundred  times,  but  that  is 
all,"  replied  Dick. 

"  Ah,"  said  Van  Tromp,  with  a  smile  and  shak- 
ing his  head ;  "  you  are  not  an  old  campaigner ; 
you  have  the  world  to  learn.    Now  I,  you  see,  find 


320    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

an  inn  so  very  near  my  own  home,  and  my  first 
thought  is  —  my  neighbours.  I  shall  go  forward 
and  make  my  neighbour's  acquaintance;  no,  you 
needn't  come;    I  shall  not  be  a  moment." 

And  he  walked  off  briskly  towards  the  inn, 
leaving  Dick  alone  with  Esther  on  the  road. 

"  Dick,"  she  exclaimed,  "  I  am  so  glad  to  get  a 
word  with  you;  I  am  so  happy,  I  have  such  a 
thousand  things  to  say ;  and  I  want  you  to  do  me 
a  favour.  Imagine,  he  has  come  without  a  paint- 
box, without  an  easel ;  and  I  want  him  to  have  all. 
I  want  you  to  get  them  for  me  in  Thymebury. 
You  saw,  this  moment,  how  his  heart  turned  to 
painting.  They  can't  live  without  it,"  she  added; 
meaning  perhaps  Van  Tromp  and  Michelangelo. 

Up  to  that  moment  she  had  observed  nothing 
amiss  in  Dick's  behaviour.  She  was  too  happy  to 
be  curious ;  and  his  silence,  in  presence  of  the  great 
and  good  being  whom  she  called  her  father,  had 
seemed  both  natural  and  praiseworthy.  But  now 
that  they  were  alone,  she  became  conscious  of  a 
barrier  between  her  lover  and  herself,  and  alarm 
sprang  up  in  her  heart. 

"  Dick,"  she  cried,  "  you  don't  love  me." 

"  I  do  that,"  he  said  heartily. 

"  But  you  are  unhappy ;  you  are  strange ;  you 
—  you  are  not  glad  to  see  my  father,"  she  con- 
cluded, with  a  break  in  her  voice. 

"  Esther,"  he  said,  "  I  tell  you  that  I  love  you ; 
if  you  love  me,  you  know  what  that  means,  and  that 
all  I  wish  is  to  see  you  happy.  Do  you  think  I 
cannot  enjoy  your  pleasure  ?    Esther,  I  do.    If  I  am 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    321 

uneasy,  if  I  am  alarmed,  if Oh,  believe  me, 

try  and  believe  in  me/'  he  cried,  giving  up  argu- 
ment with  perhaps  a  happy  inspiration. 

But  the  girl's  suspicions  were  aroused;  and 
although  she  pressed  the  matter  no  further  (in- 
deed her  father  was  already  seen  returning),  it  by 
no  means  left  her  thoughts.  At  one  moment  she 
simply  resented  the  selfishness  of  a  man  who  had 
obtruded  his  dark  looks  and  passionate  language 
on  her  joy ;  for  there  is  nothing  that  a  woman  can 
less  easily  forgive  than  the  language  of  a  passion 
which,  even  if  only  for  the  moment,  she  does  not 
share.  At  another,  she  suspected  him  of  jealousy 
against  her  father ;  and  for  that,  although  she  could 
see  excuses  for  it,  she  yet  despised  him.  And  at 
least,  in  one  way  or  the  other,  here  was  the  dan- 
gerous beginning  of  a  separation  between  two 
hearts.  Esther  found  herself  at  variance  with  her 
sweetest  friend;  she  could  no  longer  look  into  his 
heart  and  find  it  written  in  the  same  language  as 
her  own ;  she  could  no  longer  think  of  him  as  the 
sun  which  radiated  happiness  upon  her  life,  for 
she  had  turned  to  him  once,  and  he  had  breathed 
upon  her  black  and  chilly,  radiated  blackness  and 
frost.  To  put  the  whole  matter  in  a  word,  she  was 
beginning,  although  ever  so  slightly,  to  fall  out  of 
love. 


2r 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   PRODIGAL   FATHER   GOES   ON  FROM 
STRENGTH   TO   STRENGTH 

WE  will  not  follow  all  the  steps  of  the 
Admiral's  return  and  installation,  but 
hurry  forward  towards  the  catastro- 
phe, merely  chronicling  by  the  way  a  few  salient 
incidents,  wherein  we  must  rely  entirely  upon  the 
evidence  of  Richard,  for  Esther  to  this  day  has 
never  opened  her  mouth  upon  this  trying  passage 
of  her  life,  and  as  for  the  Admiral  —  well,  that 
naval  officer,  though  still  alive,  and  now  more 
suitably  installed  in  a  seaport  town  where  he  has  a 
telescope  and  a  flag  in  his  front  garden,  is  inca- 
pable of  throwing  the  slightest  gleam  of  light  upon 
the  affair.  Often  and  often  has  he  remarked  to 
the  present  writer :  "  If  I  know  what  it  was  all 

about,  sir,  I  '11  be "  in  short,  be  what  I  hope 

he  will  not.  And  then  he  will  look  across  at  his 
daughter's  portrait,  a  photograph,  shake  his  head 
with  an  amused  appearance,  and  mix  himself  an- 
other grog  by  way  of  consolation.  Once  I  have 
heard  him  go  further,  and  express  his  feelings 
with  regard  to  Esther  in  a  single  but  eloquent 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    323 

word.  "  A  minx,  sir,"  he  said,  not  in  anger,  rather 
in  amusement;  and  he  cordially  drank  her  health 
upon  the  back  of  it.  His  worst  enemy  must  admit 
him  to  be  a  man  without  malice;  he  never  bore  a 
grudge  in  his  life,  lacking  the  necessary  taste  and 
industry  of  attention. 

Yet  it  was  during  this  obscure  period  that  the 
drama  was  really  performed;  and  its  scene  was 
in  the  heart  of  Esther,  shut  away  from  all  eyes. 
Had  this  warm,  upright,  sullen  girl  been  differently 
used  by  destiny,  had  events  come  upon  her  even  in 
a  different  succession,  for  some  things  lead  easily 
to  others,  the  whole  course  of  this  tale  would  have 
been  changed,  and  Esther  never  would  have  run 
away.  As  it  was,  through  a  series  of  acts  and 
words  of  which  we  know  but  few,  and  a  series  of 
thoughts  which  any  one  may  imagine  for  himself, 
she  was  awakened  in  four  days  from  the  dream 
of  a  life. 

The  first  tangible  cause  of  disenchantment  was 
when  Dick  brought  home  a  painters  arsenal  on 
Friday  evening.  The  Admiral  was  in  the  chimney- 
corner,  once  more  "  sirrupping  "  some  brandy-and- 
water,  and  Esther  sat  at  the  table  at  work.  They 
both  came  forward  to  greet  the  new  arrival;  and 
the  girl,  relieving  him  of  his  monstrous  burthen, 
proceeded  to  display  her  offerings  to  her  father. 
Van  Tromp's  countenance  fell  several  degrees;  he 
became  quite  querulous. 

"  God  bless  me,"  he  said ;  and  then,  "  I  must 
really  ask  you  not  to  interfere,  child,"  in  a  tone  of 
undisguised  hostility. 


324    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

"  Father,"  she  said,  "  forgive  me ;  I  knew  you 
had  given  up  your  art " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  cried  the  Admiral ;  "  I  Ve  done  with 
it  to  the  judgment  day!  " 

"  Pardon  me  again,"  she  said  firmly,  "  but  I  do 
not,  I  cannot  think  that  you  are  right  in  this.  Sup- 
pose the  world  is  unjust,  suppose  that  no  one  under- 
stands you,  you  have  still  a  duty  to  yourself.  And 
oh,  don't  spoil  the  pleasure  of  your  coming  home 
to  me;  show  me  that  you  can  be  my  father  and 
yet  not  neglect  your  destiny.  I  am  not  like  some 
daughters;  I  will  not  be  jealous  of  your  art,  and 
I  will  try  to  understand  it." 

The  situation  was  odiously  farcical.  Richard 
groaned  under  it;  he  longed  to  leap  forward  and 
denounce  the  humbug.  And  the  humbug  himself? 
Do  you  fancy  he  was  easier  in  his  mind?  I  am 
sure,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  was  actually  miser- 
able ;  and  he  betrayed  his  sufferings  by  a  perfectly 
silly  and  undignified  access  of  temper,  during 
which  he  broke  his  pipe  in  several  places,  threw 
his  brandy-and-water  in  the  fire,  and  employed 
words  which  were  very  plain  although  the  drift 
of  them  was  somewhat  vague.  It  was  of  very 
brief  duration.  Van  Tromp  was  himself  again, 
and  in  a  most  delightful  humour  within  three 
minutes  of  the  first  explosion. 

"  I  am  an  old  fool,"  he  said  frankly.  "  I  was 
spoiled  when  a  child.  As  for  you,  Esther,  you 
take  after  your  mother;  you  have  a  morbid  sense 
of  duty,  particularly  for  others;  strive  against  it, 
my   dear  —  strive   against   it.      And   as   for   the 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    325 

pigments,  well,  I  '11  use  them  some  of  these  days ; 
and  to  show  that  I  'm  in  earnest,  I  '11  get  Dick 
here  to  prepare  a  canvas." 

Dick  was  put  to  this  menial  task  forthwith,  the 
Admiral  not  even  watching  how  he  did,  but  quite 
occupied  with  another  grog  and  a  pleasant  vein  of 
talk. 

A  little  after  Esther  arose,  and  making  some 
pretext,  good  or  bad,  went  off  to  bed.  Dick  was 
left  hobbled  by  the  canvas,  and  was  subjected  to 
Van  Tromp  for  about  an  hour. 

The  next  day,  Saturday,  it  is  believed  that  little 
intercourse  took  place  between  Esther  and  her 
father;  but  towards  the  afternoon  Dick  met  the 
latter  returning  from  the  direction  of  the  inn, 
where  he  had  struck  up  quite  a  friendship  with  the 
landlord.  Dick  wondered  who  paid  for  these  ex- 
cursions, and  at  the  thought  that  the  reprobate  must 
get  his  pocket-money  where  he  got  his  board  and 
lodging,  from  poor  Esther's  generosity,  he  had  it 
almost  in  his  heart  to  knock  the  old  gentleman 
down.  He,  on  his  part,  was  full  of  airs  and  graces 
and  geniality. 

"  Dear  Dick,"  he  said,  taking  his  arm,  "  this  is 
neighbourly  of  you ;  it  shows  your  tact  to  meet  me 
when  I  had  a  wish  for  you.  I  am  in  pleasant 
spirits;  and  it  is  then  that  I  desire  a  friend." 

"lam  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  so  happy,"  re- 
torted Dick  bitterly.  "  There  's  certainly  not  much 
to  trouble  you." 

"  No,"  assented  the  Admiral,  "  not  much.  I  got 
out  of  it  in  time;    and  here  —  well,  here  every- 


326    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

thing  pleases  me.  I  am  plain  in  my  tastes.  A 
propoSy  you  have  never  asked  me  how  I  liked  my 
daughter." 

"  No,"  said  Dick  roundly ;  "  I  certainly  have 
not." 

"  Meaning  you  will  not.  And  why,  Dick  ?  She 
is  my  daughter,  of  course ;  but  then  I  am  a  man  of 
the  world  and  a  man  of  taste,  and  perfectly  quali- 
fied to  give  an  opinion  with  impartiality  —  yes, 
Dick,  with  impartiality.  Frankly,  I  am  not  disap- 
pointed in  her.  She  has  good  looks ;  she  has  them 
from  her  mother.  She  is  devoted,  quite  devoted 
to  me " 

"  She  is  the  best  woman  in  the  world ! "  broke 
out  Dick. 

"  Dick,"  cried  the  Admiral,  stopping  short ; 
"  I  have  been  expecting  this.  Let  us  —  let  us  go 
back  to  the  '  Trevanion  Arms/  and  talk  this  matter 
out  over  a  bottle." 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  Dick.  "  You  have  had 
far  too  much  already." 

The  parasite  was  on  the  point  of  resenting  this ; 
but  a  look  at  Dick's  face,  and  some  recollections  of 
the  terms  on  which  they  had  stood  in  Paris,  came  to 
the  aid  of  his  wisdom  and  restrained  him. 

"  As  you  please,"  he  said ;  "  although  I  don't 
know  what  you  mean  —  nor  care.  But  let  us  walk, 
if  you  prefer  it.    You  are  still  a  young  man ;  when 

you  are  my  age But,  however,  to  continue. 

You  please  me,  Dick;  you  have  pleased  me  from 
the  first;  and  to  say  truth,  Esther  is  a  trifle  fan- 
tastic, and  will  be  better  when  she  is  married.    She 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    327 

has  means  of  her  own,  as  of  course  you  are  aware. 
They  come,  like  the  looks,  from  her  poor,  dear, 
good  creature  of  a  mother.  She  was  blessed  in 
her  mother.  I  mean  she  shall  be  blessed  in  her 
husband,  and  you  are  the  man,  Dick,  you  and 
not  another.  This  very  night  I  will  sound  her 
affections." 

Dick  stood  aghast. 

"Mr.  Van  Tromp,  I  implore  you,"  he  said; 
"  do  what  you  please  with  yourself,  but,  for  God's 
sake,  let  your  daughter  alone." 

"  It  is  my  duty,"  replied  the  Admiral,  "  and 
between  ourselves,  you  rogue,  my  inclination  too. 
I  am  as  matchmaking  as  a  dowager.  It  will  be 
more  discreet  for  you  to  stay  away  to-night.  Fare- 
well. You  leave  your  case  in  good  hands ;  I  have 
the  tact  of  these  little  matters  by  heart ;  it  is  not  my 
first  attempt." 

All  arguments  were  in  vain ;  the  old  rascal  stuck 
to  his  point ;  nor  did  Richard  conceal  from  himself 
how  seriously  this  might  injure  his  prospects,  and 
he  fought  hard.  Once  there  came  a  glimmer  of 
hope.  The  Admiral  again  proposed  an  adjourn- 
ment to  the  "  Trevanion  Arms,"  and  when  Dick 
had  once  more  refused,  it  hung  for  a  moment  in 
the  balance  whether  or  not  the  old  toper  would 
return  there  by  himself.  Had  he  done  so,  of  course 
Dick  could  have  taken  to  his  heels,  and  warned 
Esther  of  what  was  coming,  and  of  how  it  had 
begun.  But  the  Admiral,  after  a  pause,  decided 
for  the  brandy  at  home,  and  made  off  in  that 
direction. 


328    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

We  have  no  details  of  the  sounding. 

Next  day  the  Admiral  was  observed  in  the  parish 
church,  very  properly  dressed.  He  found  the 
places,  and  joined  in  response  and  hymn,  as  to  the 
manner  born;  and  his  appearance,  as  he  intended 
it  should,  attracted  some  attention  among  the  wor- 
shippers. Old  Naseby,  for  instance,  had  observed 
him. 

"  There  was  a  drunken-looking  blackguard  op- 
posite us  in  church,"  he  said  to  his  son  as  they 
drove  home ;  "  do  you  know  who  he  was  ?  " 

"  Some  fellow  —  Van  Tromp,  I  believe,"  said 
Dick. 

"  A  foreigner  too !  "  observed  the  Squire. 

Dick  could  not  sufficiently  congratulate  himself 
on  the  escape  he  had  effected.  Had  the  Admiral 
met  him  with  his  father,  what  would  have  been  the 
result  ?  And  could  such  a  catastrophe  be  long  post- 
poned? It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  storm  were 
nearly  ripe;  and  it  was  so  more  nearly  than  he 
thought. 

He  did  not  go  to  the  cottage  in  the  afternoon, 
withheld  by  fear  and  shame ;  but  when  dinner  was 
over  at  Naseby  House,  and  the  Squire  had  gone  off 
into  a  comfortable  doze,  Dick  slipped  out  of  the 
room,  and  ran  across  country,  in  part  to  save  time, 
in  part  to  save  his  own  courage  from  growing 
cold;  for  he  now  hated  the  notion  of  the  cottage 
or  the  Admiral,  and  if  he  did  not  hate,  at  least 
feared  to  think  of  Esther.  He  had  no  clue  to  her 
reflections ;  but  he  could  not  conceal  from  his  own 
heart  that  he  must  have  sunk  in  her  esteem,  and 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    329 

the  spectacle  of  her  infatuation  galled  him  like  an 
insult. 

He  knocked  and  was  admitted.  The  room  looked 
very  much  as  on  his  last  visit,  with  Esther  at  the 
table  and  Van  Tromp  beside  the  fire;  but  the 
expression  of  the  two  faces  told  a  very  different 
story.  The  girl  was  paler  than  usual;  her  eyes 
were  dark,  the  colour  seemed  to  have  faded  from 
round  them,  and  her  swiftest  glance  was  as  intent 
as  a  stare.  The  appearance  of  the  Admiral,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  rosy,  and  flabby,  and  moist;  his 
jowl  hung  over  his  shirt  collar,  his  smile  was  loose 
and  wandering,  and  he  had  so  far  relaxed  the 
natural  control  of  his  eyes,  that  one  of  them  was 
aimed  inward,  as  if  to  catch  the  growth  of  the 
carbuncle.  We  are  warned  against  bad  judg- 
ments; but  the  Admiral  was  certainly  not  sober. 
He  made  no  attempt  to  rise  when  Richard  entered, 
but  waved  his  pipe  flightily  in  the  air,  and  gave 
a  leer  of  welcome.  Esther  took  as  little  notice  of 
him  as  might  be. 

"  Aha !  Dick !  "  cried  the  painter.  "  I  Ve  been 
to  church ;  I  have,  upon  my  word.  And  I  saw  you 
there,  though  you  did  n't  see  me.  And  I  saw  u 
devilish  pretty  woman,  by  Gad.  If  it  were  not  for 
this  baldness,  and  a  ^yid  of  crapulous  air  I  can't 
disguise  from  myself  —  if  \t  were  n't  for  this  and 
that  and  t'other  thing  —  I  —  I  \e  forgot  what  I 
was  saying.  Not  that  that  matters,  I  've  heaps  of 
things  to  say.  I'm  in  a  communicative  vein  to- 
night. I  '11  let  out  all  my  cats,  even  unto  seventy 
times  seven.     I  'm  in  what  I  call  the  stage,  and 


330    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

all  I  desire  is  a  listener,  although  he  were  deaf, 
to  be  as  happy  as  Nebuchadnezzar." 

Of  the  two  hours  which  followed  upon  this  it 
is  unnecessary  to  give  more  than  a  sketch.  The 
Admiral  was  extremely  silly,  now  and  then  amus- 
ing, and  never  really  offensive.  It  was  plain  that 
he  kept  in  view  the  presence  of  his  daughter,  and 
chose  subjects  and  a  character  of  language  that 
should  not  offend  a  lady.  On  almost  any  other 
occasion  Dick  would  have  enjoyed  the  scene. 
Van  Tromp's  egotism,  flown  with  drink,  struck  a 
pitch  above  mere  vanity.  He  became  candid  and 
explanatory;  sought  to  take  his  auditors  entirely 
into  his  confidence,  and  tell  them  his  inmost  con- 
viction about  himself.  Between  his  self-knowledge, 
which  was  considerable,  and  his  vanity,  which  was 
immense,  he  had  created  a  strange  hybrid  animal, 
and  called  it  by  his  own  name.  How  he  would 
plume  his  feathers  over  virtues  which  would  have 
gladdened  the  heart  of  Caesar  or  St.  Paul;  and 
anon,  complete  his  own  portrait  with  one  of  those 
touches  of  pitiless  realism  which  the  satirist  so 
often  seeks  in  vain. 

"  Now,  there  's  Dick,"  he  said,  "  he  's  shrewd ; 
he  saw  through  me  the  first  time  we  met,  and  told 
me  so  —  told  me  so  to  my  face,  which  I  had  the 
virtue  to  keep.  I  bear  you  no  malice  for  it,  Dick ; 
you  were  right;    I  am  a  humbug." 

You  may  fancy  how  Esther  quailed  at  this 
new  feature  of  the  meeting  between  her  two 
idols. 

And  then,  again,  in  a  parenthesis: 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    331 

"  That,"  said  Van  Tromp,  "  was  when  I  had  to 
paint  those  dirty  daubs  of  mine." 

And  a  little  further  on,  laughingly  said,  perhaps, 
but  yet  with  an  air  of  truth : 

"  I  never  had  the  slightest  hesitation  in  sponging 
upon  any  human  creature." 

Thereupon  Dick  got  up. 

"  I  think,  perhaps,"  he  said,  "  we  had  better  all 
be  thinking  of  going  to  bed."  And  he  smiled  with 
a  feeble  and  deprecatory  smile. 

"  Not  at  all,"  cried  the  Admiral,  "  I  know  a 
trick  worth  two  of  that.  Puss  here,"  indicating 
his  daughter,  "  shall  go  to  bed ;  and  you  and  I 
will  keep  it  up  till  all 's  blue." 

Thereupon  Esther  arose  in  sullen  glory.  She 
had  sat  and  listened  for  two  mortal  hours  while  her 
idol  defiled  himself  and  sneered  away  his  godhead. 
One  by  one,  her  illusions  had  departed;  and  now 
he  wished  to  order  her  to  bed  in  her  own  house! 
now  he  called  her  Puss!  now,  even  as  he  uttered 
the  words,  toppling  on  his  chair,  he  broke  the  stem 
of  his  tobacco  pipe  in  three !  Never  did  the  sheep 
turn  upon  her  shearer  with  a  more  commanding 
front.  Her  voice  was  calm,  her  enunciation  a  little 
slow,  but  perfectly  distinct,  and  she  stood  before 
him,  as  she  spoke,  in  the  simplest  and  most  maid- 
enly attitude. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  Mr.  Naseby  will  have  the 
goodness  to  go  home  at  once,  and  you  will  go  to 
bed." 

The  broken  fragments  of  pipe  fell  from  the  Ad- 
miral's ringers;   he  seemed  by  his  countenance  to 


332    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

have  lived  too  long  in  a  world  unworthy  of  him; 
but  it  is  an  odd  circumstance,  he  attempted  no  re- 
ply, and  sat  thunderstruck,  with  open  mouth. 

Dick  she  motioned  sharply  towards  the  door, 
and  he  could  only  obey  her.  In  the  porch,  finding 
she  was  close  behind  him,  he  ventured  to  pause  and 
whisper,  "  You  have  done  right." 

"  I  have  done  as  I  pleased,"  she  said.  "  Can  he 
paint?" 

"  Many  people  like  his  paintings,"  returned 
Dick,  in  stifled  tones ;  "  I  never  did ;  I  never  said 
I  did,"  he  added,  fiercely  defending  himself  before 
he  was  attacked. 

"  I  ask  you  if  he  can  paint.  I  will  not  be  put 
off.     Can  he  paint  ?  "  she  repeated. 

"  No,"  said  Dick. 

"  Does  he  even  like  it  ?  " 

"  Not  now,  I  believe." 

"  And  he  is  drunk  ?  "  —  she  leaned  upon  the 
word  with  hatred. 

"  He  has  been  drinking." 

"  Go,"  she  said,  and  was  turning  to  re-enter  the 
house  when  another  thought  arrested  her.  "  Meet 
me  to-morrow  morning  at  the  stile,"  she  said. 

"  I  will,"  replied  Dick. 

And  then  the  door  closed  behind  her,  and  Dick 
was  alone  in  the  darkness.  There  was  still  a  chink 
of  light  above  the  sill,  a  warm,  mild  glow  behind 
the  window;  the  roof  of  the  cottage  and  some 
of  the  banks  and  hazels  were  defined  in  denser 
darkness  against  the  sky ;  but  all  else  was  formless, 
breathless,  and  noiseless  like  the  pit.  Dick  remained 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    333 

as  she  had  left  him,  standing  squarely  on  one  foot 
and  resting  only  on  the  toe  of  the  other,  and  as  he 
stood  he  listened  with  his  soul.  The  sound  of  a 
chair  pushed  sharply  over  the  floor  startled  his  heart 
into  his  mouth ;  but  the  silence  which  had  thus  been 
disturbed  settled  back  again  at  once  upon  the  cot- 
tage and  its  vicinity.  What  took  place  during  this 
interval  is  a  secret  from  the  world  of  men;  but 
when  it  was  over  the  voice  of  Esther  spoke  evenly 
and  without  interruption  for  perhaps  half  a  minute, 
and  as  soon  as  that  ceased  heavy  and  uncertain 
footfalls  crossed  the  parlour  and  mounted  lurching 
up  the  stairs.  The  girl  had  tamed  her  father, 
Van  Tromp  had  gone  obediently  to  bed;  so  much 
was  obvious  to  the  watcher  in  the  road.  And  yet 
he  still  waited,  straining  his  ears,  and  with  terror 
and  sickness  at  his  heart;  for  if  Esther  had  fol- 
lowed her  father,  if  she  had  even  made  one  move- 
ment in  this  great  conspiracy  of  men  and  nature 
to  be  still,  Dick  must  have  had  instant  knowledge 
of  it  from  his  station  before  the  door;  and  if  she 
had  not  moved,  must  she  not  have  fainted?  or 
might  she  not  be  dead? 

He  could  hear  the  cottage  clock  deliberately 
measure  out  the  seconds ;  time  stood  still  with  him ; 
an  almost  superstitious  terror  took  command  of  his 
faculties;  at  last,  he  could  bear  no  more,  and 
springing  through  the  little  garden  in  two  bounds, 
he  put  his  face  against  the  window.  The  blind, 
which  had  not  been  drawn  fully  down,  left  an  open 
chink  about  an  inch  in  height  along  the  bottom  of 
the  glass,  and  the  whole  parlour  was  thus  exposed 


334    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

to  Dick's  investigation.  Esther  sat  upright  at 
the  table,  her  head  resting  on  her  hand,  her  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  candle.  Her  brows  were  slightly 
bent,  her  mouth  slightly  open;  her  whole  atti- 
tude so  still  and  settled  that  Dick  could  hardly 
fancy  that  she  breathed.  She  had  not  stirred  at 
the  sound  of  Dick's  arrival.  Soon  after,  making 
a  considerable  disturbance  amid  the  vast  silence  of 
the  night,  the  clock  lifted  up  its  voice,  whined  for 
awhile  like  a  partridge,  and  then  eleven  times 
hooted  like  a  cuckoo.  Still  Esther  continued  im- 
movable and  gazed  upon  the  candle.  Midnight 
followed,  and  then  one  of  the  morning;  and  still 
she  had  not  stirred,  nor  had  Richard  Naseby  dared 
to  quit  the  window.  And  then  about  half-past  one, 
the  candle  she  had  been  thus  intently  watching 
flared  up  into  a  last  blaze  of  paper,  and  she 
leaped  to  her  feet  with  an  ejaculation,  looked 
about  her  once,  blew  out  the  light,  turned  round, 
and  was  heard  rapidly  mounting  the  staircase  in 
the.  dark. 

\  Dick  was  left  once  more  alone  to  darkness  and 
to  that  dulled  and  dogged  state  of  mind  when  a 
man  thinks  that  misery  must  now  have  done  her 
worst,  and  is  almost  glad  to  think  so.  He  turned 
and  walked  slowly  towards  the  stile;  she  had  told 
him  no  hour,  and  he  was  determined,  whenever  she 
came,  that  she  should  find  him  waiting^  As  he  got 
there  the  day  began  to  dawn,  and  he  leaned  over 
a  hurdle  and  beheld  the  shadows  flee  away.  Up 
went  the  sun  at  last  out  of  a  bank  of  clouds  that 
were  already  disbanding  in  the  east ;  a  herald  wind 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    335 

had  already  sprung  up  to  sweep  the  leafy  earth 
and  scatter  the  congregated  dewdrops.  "  Alas !  " 
thought  Dick  Naseby,  "  how  can  any  other  day 
come  so  distastefully  to  me?  "  He  still  wanted  his 
experience  of  the  morrow. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   ELOPEMENT 

IT  was  probably  on  the  stroke  of  ten,  and 
Dick  had  been  half  asleep  for  some  time 
against  the  bank,  when  Esther  came  up  the 
road  carrying  a  bundle.  Some  kind  of  instinct,  or 
perhaps  the  distant  light  footfalls,  recalled  him, 
while  she  was  still  a  good  way  off,  to  the  posses- 
sion of  his  faculties,  and  he  half  raised  himself  and 
blinked  upon  the  world.  It  took  him  some  time  to 
re-collect  his  thoughts.  He  had  awakened  with  a 
certain  blank  and  childish  sense  of  pleasure;  but 
this  feeling  gradually  died  away,  and  was  then 
suddenly  and  stunningly  succeeded  by  a  conviction 
of  the  truth.  The  whole  story  of  the  past  night 
sprang  into  his  mind  with  every  detail,  as  by  an 
exercise  of  the  direct  and  speedy  sense  of  sight, 
and  he  arose  from  the  ditch  and,  with  rueful  cour- 
age, went  to  meet  his  love. 

She  came  up  to  him  steady  and  fast,  her  face  still 
pale,  but  to  all  appearance  perfectly  composed; 
and  she  showed  neither  surprise,  relief,  nor  pleas- 
ure at  rinding  her  lover  on  the  spot.  Nor  did  she 
offer  him  her  hand. 

"  Here  I  am,"  said  he. 

"Yes,"  she  replied;   and  then,  without  a  pause 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    337 

or  any  change  of  voice,  "  I  want  you  to  take  me 
away,"  she  added. 

"  Away  ?  "  he  repeated.     "  How  ?    Where  ?  " 

"  To-day,"  she  said.  "  I  do  not  care  where  it 
is,  but  I  want  you  to  take  me  away." 

"  For  how  long?  I  do  not  understand,"  gasped 
Dick. 

"  I  shall  never  come  back  here  any  more,"  was 
all  she  answered. 

Wild  words  uttered,  as  these  were,  with  perfect 
quiet  of  manner,  exercise  a  double  influence  on  the 
hearer's  mind.  Dick  was  confounded ;  he  recovered 
from  astonishment  only  to  fall  into  doubt  and  alarm. 
He  looked  upon  her  frozen  attitude,  so  discour- 
aging for  a  lover  to  behold,  and  recoiled  from  the 
thoughts  which  it  suggested. 

"  To  me?  "  he  asked.  "  Are  you  coming  to  me, 
Esther?" 

"  I  want  you  to  take  me  away,"  she  repeated, 
with  weary  impatience.  "  Take  me  away  —  take 
me  away  from  here." 

The  situation  was  not  sufficiently  defined.  Dick 
asked  himself  with  concern  whether  she  were  al- 
together in  her  right  wits.  To  take  her  away,  to 
marry  her,  to  work  off  his  hands  for  her  support, 
Dick  was  content  to  do  all  this;  yet  he  required 
some  show  of  love  on  her  part.  He  was  not  one 
of  those  tough-hided  and  small-hearted  males  who 
would  marry  their  love  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet 
rather  than  not  marry  her  at  all.  He  desired  that 
a  woman  should  come  to  his  arms  with  an  attract- 
ive willingness,  if  not  with  ardour.    And  Esther's 


338    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

bearing  was  more  that  of  despair  than  that  of  love. 
It  chilled  him  and  taught  him  wisdom. 

*  Dearest/'  he  urged,  "  tell  me  what  you  wish, 
and  you  shall  have  it;  tell  me  your  thoughts,  and 
then  I  can  advise  you.  But  to  go  from  here  with- 
out a  plan,  without  forethought,  in  the  heat  of  the 
moment,  is  madder  thar  madness,  and  can  help 
nothing.  I  am  not  speaking  like  a  man,  but  I 
speak,  the  truth ;  and  I  tell  you  again,  the  thing 's 
absurd,  and  wrong,  and  hurtful." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  lowering,  languid  look 
of  wrath. 

"  So  you  will  not  take  me?  "  she  said.  "  Well, 
I  will  go  alone." 

And  she  began  to  step  forward  on  her  way. 
But  he  threw  himself  before  her. 

"  Esther,  Esther!  "  he  cried. 

"  Let  me  go  —  don't  touch  me  —  what  right 
have  you  to  interfere?  Who  are  you,  to  touch 
me?"  she  flashed  out,  shrill  with  anger. 

Then  being  made  bold  by  her  violence,  he  took 
her  firmly,  almost  roughly,  by  the  arm,  and  held 
her  while  he  spoke. 

"  You  know  well  who  I  am,  and  what  I  am, 
and  that  I  love  you.  You  say  I  will  not  help  you ; 
but  your  heart  knows  the  contrary.  It  is  you  who 
will  not  help  me;  for  you  will  not  tell  me  what 
you  want.  You  see  —  or  you  could  see,  if  you 
took  the  pains  to  look  —  how  I  have  waited  here 
all  night  to  be  ready  at  your  service.  I  only  asked 
information;  I  only  urged  you  to  consider;  and 
I  still  urge  you  to  think  better  of  your  fancies. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE   339 

But  if  your  mind  is  made  up,  so  be  it ;  I  will  beg 
no  longer;  I  will  give  you  my  order;  and  I  will 
not  allow  —  not  allow  you  to  go  hence  alone/' 

She  looked  at  him  for  awhile  with  cold,  unkind 
scrutiny,  like  one  who  tries  the  temper  of  a  tool. 

"  Well,  take  me  away  then,"  she  said,  with  a 
sigh. 

"  Good,"  said  Dick.  "  Come  with  me  to  the 
stables ;  there  we  shall  get  the  pony-trap  and  drive 
to  the  junction.  To-night  you  shall  be  in  London. 
I  am  yours  so  wholly  that  no  words  can  make 
me  more  so;  and,  besides,  you  know  it,  and  the 
words  are  needless.  May  God  help  me  to  be  good 
to  you,  Esther  —  may  God  help  me !  for  I  see  that 
you  will  not." 

So,  without  more  speech,  they  set  out  together, 
and  were  already  got  some  distance  from  the  spot, 
ere  he  observed  that  she  was  still  carrying  the  hand- 
bag. She  gave  it  up  to  him,  passively,  but  when 
he  offered  her  his  arm,  merely  shook  her  head  and 
pursed  up  her  lips.  The  sun  shone  clearly  and 
pleasantly;  the  wind  was  fresh  and  brisk  upon 
their  faces,  and  smelt  racily  of  woods  and  meadows. 
As  they  went  down  into  the  Valley  of  the  Thyme, 
the  babble  of  the  stream  rose  into  the  air  like  a 
perennial  laughter.  On  the  far-away  hills,  sun- 
burst and  shadow  raced  along  the  slopes  and  leaped 
from  peak  to  peak.  Earth,  air,  and  water,  each 
seemed  in  better  health  and  had  more  of  the 
shrewd  salt  of  life  in  them  than  upon  ordinary 
mornings ;  and  from  east  to  west,  from  the  lowest 
glen  to  the  height  of  heaven,  from  every  look  and 


34Q    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

touch  and  scent,  a  human  creature  could  gather 
the  most  encouraging  intelligence  as  to  the  dura- 
bility and  spirit  of  the  universe. 

Through  all  this  walked  Esther,  picking  her 
small  steps  like  a  bird,  but  silent  and  with  a  cloud 
under  her  thick  eyebrows.  She  seemed  insensible, 
not  only  of  nature,  but  of  the  presence  of  her 
companion.  She  was  altogether  engrossed  in  her- 
self, and  looked  neither  to  right  nor  to  left,  but 
straight  before  her  on  the  road.  When  they  came 
to  the  bridge,  however,  she  halted,  leaned  on  the 
parapet,  and  stared  for  a  moment  at  the  clear, 
brown  pool,  and  swift,  transient  snowdrift  of  the 
rapids. 

"  I  am  going  to  drink,"  she  said ;  and  descended 
the  winding  footpath  to  the  margin. 

There  she  drank  greedily  in  her  hands,  and 
washed  her  temples  with  water.  The  coolness 
seemed  to  break,  for  an  instant,  the  spell  that  lay 
upon  her ;  for,  instead  of  hastening  forward  again 
in  her  dull,  indefatigable  tramp,  she  stood  still 
where  she  was,  for  near  a  minute,  looking  straight 
before  her.  And  Dick  from  above  on  the  bridge 
where  he  stood  to  watch  her,  saw  a  strange,  equiv- 
ocal smile  dawn  slowly  on  her  face  and  pass  away 
again  at  once  and  suddenly,  leaving  her  as  grave 
as  ever;  and  the  sense  of  distance,  which  it  is  so 
cruel  for  a  lover  to  endure,  pressed  with  every 
moment  more  heavily  on  her  companion.  Her 
thoughts  were  all  secret ;  her  heart  was  locked  and 
bolted;  and  he  stood  without,  vainly  wooing  her 
with  his  eyes. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    341 

"  Do  you  feel  better  ?  "  asked  Dick,  as  she  at 
last  rejoined  him;  and  after  the  constraint  of  so 
long  a  silence,  his  voice  sounded  foreign  to  his 
own  ears. 

She  looked  at  him  for  an  appreciable  fraction  of 
a  minute  ere  she  answered,  and  when  she  did,  it 
was  in  the  monosyllable  —  "  Yes." 

Dick's  solicitude  was  nipped  and  frosted.  His 
words  died  away  on  his  tongue.  Even  his  eyes, 
despairing  of  encouragement,  ceased  to  attend  on 
hers.  And  they  went  on  in  silence  through  Kirton 
hamlet,  where  an  old  man  followed  them  with  his 
eyes,  and  perhaps  envied  them  their  youth  and 
love;  and  across  the  ivy  beck  where  the  mill  was 
splashing  and  grumbling  low  thunder  to  itself  in 
the  chequered  shadow  of  the  dell,  and  the  miller 
before  the  door  was  beating  flour  from  his  hands 
as  he  whistled  a  modulation;  and  up  by  the  high 
spinney,  whence  they  saw  the  mountains  upon 
either  hand;  and  down  the  hill  again  to  the  back 
courts  and  offices  of  Naseby  House.  Esther  had 
kept  ahead  all  the  way,  and  Dick  plodded  obedi- 
ently in  her  wake;  but  as  they  neared  the  stables, 
he  pushed  on  and  took  the  lead.  He  would  have 
preferred  her  to  await  him  in  the  road  while  he 
went  on  and  brought  the  carriage  back,  but  after 
so  many  repulses  and  rebuffs  he  lacked  courage 
to  offer  the  suggestion.  Perhaps,  too,  he  felt  it 
wiser  to  keep  his  convoy  within  sight.  So  they 
entered  the  yard  in  Indian  file,  like  a  tramp  and 
his  wife. 

The  groom's  eyebrows  rose  as  he  received  the 


342    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

order  for  the  pony-phaeton,  and  kept  rising  during 
all  his  preparations.  Esther  stood  bolt  upright  and 
looked  steadily  at  some  chickens  in  the  corner  of 
the  yard.  Master  Richard  himself,  thought  the 
groom,  was  not  in  his  ordinary;  for  in  truth,  he 
carried  the  hand-bag  like  a  talisman,  and  either 
stood  listless,  or  set  off  suddenly  walking  in  one 
direction  after  another  with  brisk,  decisive  foot- 
steps. Moreover,  he  had  apparently  neglected  to 
wash  his  hands,  and  bore  the  air  of  one  return- 
ing from  a  prolonged  nutting  ramble.  Upon  the 
groom's  countenance  there  began  to  grow  up  an 
expression  as  of  one  about  to  whistle.  And  hardly 
had  the  carriage  turned  the  corner  and  rattled  into 
the  highroad  with  this  inexplicable  pair,  than  the 
whistle  broke  forth  —  prolonged,  and  low,  and 
tremulous;  and  the  groom,  already  so  far  re- 
lieved, vented  the  rest  of  his  surprise  in  one 
simple  English  word,  friendly  to  the  mouth  of 
Jack-tar  and  the  sooty  pitman,  and  hurried  to 
spread  the  news  round  the  servants'  hall  of 
Naseby  House.  Luncheon  would  be  on  the  table 
in  little  beyond  an  hour;  and  the  Squire,  on  sit- 
ing down,  would  hardly  fail  to  ask  for  Master 
Richard.  Hence,  as  the  intelligent  reader  can 
foresee,  this  groom  has  a  part  to  play  in  the 
imbroglio. 

Meantime,  Dick  had  been  thinking  deeply  and 
bitterly.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  his  love  had  gone 
from  him  indeed,  yet  gone  but  a  little  way;  as  if 
he  needed  but  to  find  the  right  touch  or  intonation, 
and  her  heart  would  recognise  him  and  be  melted. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    343 

Yet  he  durst  not  open  his  mouth,  and  drove  in 
silence  till  they  had  passed  the  main  park-gates 
and  turned  into  the  cross-cut  lane  along  the  wall. 
Then  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  it  must  be  now,  or 
never. 

"  Can't  you  see  you  are  killing  me?  "  he  cried. 
"  Speak  to  me,  look  at  me,  treat  me  like  a  human 
man." 

She  turned  slowly  and  looked  him  in  the  face 
with  eyes  that  seemed  kinder.  He  dropped  the 
reins  and  caught  her  hand,  and  she  made  no  resist- 
ance although  her  touch  was  unresponsive.  But 
when,  throwing  one  arm  round  her  waist,  he 
sought  to  kiss  her  lips,  not  like  a  lover  indeed, 
not  because  he  wanted  to  do  so,  but  ^s  a  desperate 
man  who  puts  his  fortunes  to  the  touch,  she  drew 
away  from  him,  with  a  knot  in  her  forehead,  backed 
and  shied  about  fiercely  with  her  head,  and  pushed 
him  from  her  with  her  hand.  Then  there  was  no 
room  left  for  doubt,  and  Dick  saw,  as  clear  as 
sunlight,  that  she  had  a  distaste  or  nourished  a 
grudge  against  him. 

"Then  you  don't  love  me?"  he  said,  drawing 
back  from  her,  he  also,  as  though  her  touch  had 
burnt  him;  and  then,  as  she  made  no  answer,  he 
repeated  with  another  intonation,  imperious  and 
yet  still  pathetic,  "  You  don't  love  me,  do  you,  do 
you?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  replied.  "  Why  do  you 
ask  me?  Oh,  how  should  I  know?  It  has  all 
been  lies  together  —  lies,  and  lies,  and  lies !  " 

He  cried  her  name  sharply,  like  a  man  who  has 


344    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

taken  a  physical  hurt,  and  that  was  the  last  word 
that  either  of  them  spoke  until  they  reached  Thyme- 
bury  Junction. 

This  was  a  station  isolated  in  the  midst  of  moor- 
lands, yet  living  on  the  great  up-line  to  London. 
The  nearest  town,  Thymebury  itself,  was  seven 
miles  distant  along  the  branch  they  call  the  Vale 
of  Thyme  Railway.  It  was  now  nearly  half  an 
hour  past  noon,  the  down  train  had  just  gone  by, 
and  there  would  be  no  more  traffic  at  the  junction 
until  half-past  three,  when  the  local  train  comes 
in  to  meet  the  up  express  at  a  quarter  before  four. 
The  stationmaster  had  already  gone  off  to  his 
garden,  which  was  half  a  mile  away  in  a  hollow 
of  the  moor ;  a  porter,  who  was  just  leaving,  took 
charge  of  the  phaeton,  and  promised  to  return  it 
before  night  to  Naseby  House ;  only  a  deaf,  snuffy, 
and  stern  old  man  remained  to  play  propriety  for 
Dick  and  Esther. 

Before  the  phaeton  had  driven  off,  the  girl  had 
entered  the  station  and  seated  herself  upon  a  bench. 
The  endless,  empty  moorlands  stretched  before  her, 
entirely  unenclosed,  and  with  no  boundary  but  the 
horizon.  Two  lines  of  rails,  a  wagon  shed,  and 
a  few  telegraph  posts  alone  diversified  the  outlook. 
As  for  sounds,  the  silence  was  unbroken  save  by 
the  chant  of  the  telegraph  wires  and  the  crying 
of  the  plovers  on  the  waste.  With  the  approach 
of  midday  the  wind  had  more  and  more  fallen,  it 
was  now  sweltering  hot,  and  the  air  trembled  in 
the  sunshine. 

Dick  paused  for  an  instant  on  the  threshold  of 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    345 

the  platform.  Then,  in  two  steps,  he  was  by  her 
side  and  speaking  almost  with  a  sob. 

"  Esther,"  he  said,  "  have  pity  on  me.  What 
have  I  done?  Can  you  not  forgive  me?  Esther, 
you  loved  me  once  —  can  you  not  love  me 
still?" 

"  How  can  I  tell  you  ?  How  am  I  to  know  ?  " 
she  answered.  "  You  are  all  a  lie  to  me  —  all  a 
lie  from  first  to  last.  You  were  laughing  at  my 
folly,  playing  with  me  like  a  child,  at  the  very  time 
when  you  declared  you  loved  me.  Which  was 
true?  was  any  of  it  true?  or  was  it  all,  all  a 
mockery?  I  am  weary  trying  to  find  out.  And 
you  say  I  loved  you;  I  loved  my  father's  friend. 
I  never  loved,  I  never  heard  of,  you,  until  that 
man  came  home  and  I  began  to  find  myself  de- 
ceived. Give  me  back  my  father,  be  what  you  were 
before,  and  you  may  talk  of  love  indeed." 

"Then  you  cannot  forgive  me  —  cannot?"  he 
asked. 

"  I  have  nothing  to  forgive,"  she  answered. 
"  You  do  not  understand." 

"  Is  that  your  last  word,  Esther?  "  said  he,  very 
white  and  biting  his  lip  to  keep  it  still. 

"  Yes ;   that  is  my  last  word,"  replied  she. 

"  Then  we  are  here  on  false  pretences,  and  we 
stay  here  no  longer,"  he  said.  "  Had  you  still 
loved  me,  right  or  wrong,  I  should  have  taken  you 
away,  because  then  I  could  have  made  you  happy. 
But  as  it  is  —  I  must  speak  plainly  —  what  you 
proposed  is  degrading  to  you  and  an  insult  to  me, 
and  a  rank  unkindness  to  your  father.    Your  father 


346    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

may  be  this  or  that,  but  you  should  use  him  like 
a  fellow-creature. " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she  flashed.  "  I  leave 
him  my  house  and  all  my  money;  it  is  more  than 
he  deserves.  I  wonder  you  dare  speak  to  me 
about  that  man.  And  besides,  it  is  all  he  cares 
for;  let  him  take  it,  and  let  me  never  hear  from 
him  again.,, 

"  I  thought  you  romantic  about  fathers,"  he 
said. 

"  Is  that  a  taunt  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  No,"  he  replied,  "  it  is  an  argument.  No  one 
can  make  you  like  him,  but  don't  disgrace  him  in 
his  own  eyes.  He  is  old,  Esther,  old  and  broken 
down.  Even  I  am  sorry  for  him,  and  he  has  been 
the  loss  of  all  I  cared  for.  Write  to  your  aunt; 
when  I  see  her  answer  you  can  leave  quietly  and 
naturally,  and  I  will  take  you  to  your  aunt's  door. 
But  in  the  meantime  you  must  go  home.  You  have 
no  money,  and  so  you  are  helpless,  and  must  do 
as  I  tell  you;  and  believe  me,  Esther,  I  do  all  for 
your  good,  and  your  good  only,  so  God  help  me." 

She  had  put  her  hand  into  her  pocket  and  with- 
drawn it  empty. 

"  I  counted  upon  you,"  she  wailed. 

"  You  counted  rightly,  then,"  he  retorted.  "  I 
will  not,  to  please  you  for  a  moment,  make  both  of 
us  unhappy  for  our  lives ;  and  since  I  cannot  marry 
you,  we  have  only  been  too  long  away  and  must 
go  home  at  once." 

"  Dick,"  she  cried  suddenly,  "  perhaps  I  might 
—  perhaps  in  time  —  perhaps " 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    347 

"  There  is  no  perhaps  about  the  matter,"  inter- 
rupted Dick.       I  must  go  and  bring  the  phaeton.' ' 

And  with  that  he  strode  from  the  station,  all  in 
a  glow  of  passion  and  virtue.  Esther,  whose  eyes 
had  come  alive  and  her  cheeks  flushed  during  these 
last  words,  relapsed  in  a  second  into  a  state  of 
petrifaction.  She  remained  without  motion  dur- 
ing his  absence,  and  when  he  returned  suffered 
herself  to  be  put  back  into  the  phaeton,  and  driven 
off  on  the  return  journey  like  an  idiot  or  a  tired 
child.  Compared  with  what  she  was  now,  her 
condition  of  the  morning  seemed  positively  natural. 
She  sat  cold  and  white  and  silent,  and  there  was 
no  speculation  in  her  eyes.  Poor  Dick  flailed  and 
flailed  at  the  pony,  and  once  tried  to  whistle,  but 
his  courage  was  going  down;  huge  clouds  of  de- 
spair gathered  together  in  his  soul,  and  from  time 
to  time  their  darkness  was  divided  by  a  piercing 
flash  of  longing  and  regret.  He  had  lost  his  love 
—  he  had  lost  his  love  for  good. 

The  pony  was  tired,  and  the  hills  very  long 
and  steep,  and  the  air  sultrier  than  ever,  for  now 
the  breeze  began  to  fail  entirely.  It  seemed  as 
if  this  miserable  drive  would  never  be  done,  as 
if  poor  Dick  would  never  be  able  to  go  away 
and  be  comfortably  wretched  by  himself;  for 
all  his  desire  was  to  escape  from  her  presence 
and  the  reproach  of  her  averted  looks.  He  had 
lost  his  love,  he  thought  —  he  had  lost  his  love 
for  good. 

They  were  already  not  far  from  the  cottage, 
when  his  heart  again  faltered  and  he  appealed  to 


348    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

her  once  more,  speaking  low  and  eagerly  in  broken 
phrases. 

"  I  cannot  live  without  your  love,"  he  concluded. 

"  I  do  not  understand  what  you  mean,"  she 
replied,  and  I  believe  with  perfect  truth. 

"  Then,"  said  he,  wounded  to  the  quick,  "  your 
aunt  might  come  and  fetch  you  herself.  Of  course 
you  can  command  me  as  you  please,  but  I  think  it 
would  be  better  so." 

"  Oh  yes,"  she  said  wearily,  "  better  so." 

This  was  the  only  exchange  of  words  between 
them  till  about  four  o'clock ;  the  phaeton,  mounting 
the  lane,  "  opened  out "  the  cottage  between  the 
leafy  banks.  Thin  smoke  went  straight  up  from  the 
chimney;  the  flowers  in  the  garden,  the  hawthorn 
in  the  lane,  hung  down  their  heads  in  the  heat; 
the  stillness  was  broken  only  by  the  sound  of  hoofs. 
For  right  before  the  gate  a  livery  servant  rode 
slowly  up  and  down,  leading  a  saddle  horse.  And 
in  this  last  Dick  shuddered  to  identify  his  father's 
chestnut. 

Alas!  poor  Richard,  what  should  this  portend? 

The  servant,  as  in  duty  bound,  dismounted  and 
took  the  phaeton  into  his  keeping,  yet  Dick  thought 
he  touched  his  hat  to  him  with  something  of  a  grin. 
Esther,  passive  as  ever,  was  helped  out  and  crossed 
the  garden  with  a  slow  and  mechanical  gait,  and 
Dick  following  close  behind  her,  heard  from  within 
the  cottage  his  father's  voice  upraised  in  anathema, 
and  the  shriller  tones  of  the  Admiral  responding 
in  the  key  of  war. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BATTLE   ROYAL 

SQUIRE  NASEBY,  on  sitting  down  to  lunch, 
had  inquired  for  Dick,  whom  he  had  not 
seen  since  the  day  before  at  dinner ;  and  the 
servant  answering  awkwardly  that  Master  Richard 
had  come  back,  but  had  gone  out  again  with  the 
pony-phaeton,  his  suspicions  became  aroused,  and 
he  cross-questioned  the  man  until  the  whole  was 
out.  It  appeared  from  this  report  that  Dick  had 
been  going  about  for  nearly  a  month  with  a  girl 
in  the  Vale  —  a  Miss  Van  Tromp ;  that  she  lived 
near  Lord  Trevanion's  upper  wood;  that  recently 
Miss  Van  Tromp's  papa  had  returned  home  from 
foreign  parts  after  a  prolonged  absence;  that  this 
papa  was  an.  old  gentleman,  very  chatty  and  free 
with  his  money  in  the  public-house  —  whereupon 
Mr.  Naseby's  face  became  encrimsoned;  that  the 
papa,  furthermore,  was  said  to  be  an  admiral  — 
whereupon  Mr.  Naseby  spat  out  a  whistle  brief  and 
fierce  as  an  oath;  that  Master  Dick  seemed  very 
friendly  with  the  papa  —  "  God  help  him !  "  said 
Mr.  Naseby;  that  last  night  Master  Dick  had  not 
come  in,  and  to-day  he  had  driven  away  in  the 
phaeton  with  the  young  lady. 


350    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

"  Young  woman,"  corrected  Mr.  Naseby. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  man,  who  had  been  unwilling 
enough  to  gossip  from  the  first,  and  was  now  cowed 
by  the  effect  of  his  communications  on  the  master. 
"  Young  woman,  sir !  " 

"Had  they  luggage?"  demanded  the  Squire. 

"  Yes,  sir." 

Mr.  Naseby  was  silent  for  a  moment,  struggling 
to  keep  down  his  emotion,  and  he  mastered  it  so 
far  as  to  mount  into  the  sarcastic  vein,  when  he 
was  in  the  nearest  danger  of  melting  into  the 
sorrowful. 

"And  was  this  —  this  Van  Dunk  with  them?" 
he  asked,  dwelling  scornfully  on  the  name. 

The  servant  believed  not,  and  being  eager  to 
shift  the  responsibility  to  other  shoulders,  sug- 
gested that  perhaps  the  master  had  better  inquire 
further  from  George  the  stableman  in  person. 

"  Tell  him  to  saddle  the  chestnut  and  come  with 
me.  He  can  take  the  grey  gelding;  for  we  may 
ride  fast.  And  then  you  can  take  away  this  trash," 
added  Mr.  Naseby,  pointing  to  the  luncheon ;  and 
he  arose,  lordly  in  his  anger,  and  marched  forth 
upon  the  terrace  to  await  his  horse. 

There  Dick's  old  nurse  shrunk  up  to  him,  for  the 
news  went  like  wildfire  over  Naseby  House,  and 
timidly  expressed  a  hope  that  there  was  nothing 
much  amiss  with  the  young  master. 

"  I  '11  pull  him  through,"  the  Squire  said  grimly, 
as  though  he  meant  to  pull  him  through  a  threshing 
mill ;  I  '11  save  him  from  this  gang ;  God  help 
him  with  the  next !    He  has  a  taste  for  low  com- 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    351 

pany,  and  no  natural  affections  to  steady  him.  His 
father  was  no  society  for  him ;  he  must  go  fuddling 
with  a  Dutchman,  Nance,  and  now  he  's  caught. 
Let  us  pray  he  '11  take  the  lesson,',  he  added,  more 
gravely,  "  but  youth  is  here  to  make  troubles,  and 
age  to  pull  them  out  again." 

Nance  whimpered  and  recalled  several  episodes 
of  Dick's  childhood,  which  moved  Mr.  Naseby  to 
blow  his  nose  and  shake  her  hard  by  the  hand ;  and 
then,  the  horse  having  arrived  opportunely,  to  get 
himself  without  delay  into  the  saddle  and  canter  off. 

He  rode  straight,  hot  spur,  to  Thymebury,  where, 
as  was  to  be  expected,  he  could  glean  no  tidings  of 
the  runaways.  They  had  not  been  seen  at  the 
George;  they  had  not  been  seen  at  the  station. 
The  shadow  darkened  on  Mr.  Naseby's  face;  the 
junction  did  not  occur  to  him ;  his  last  hope  was 
for  Van  Tromp's  cottage;  thither  he  bade  George 
guide  him,  and  thither  he  followed,  nursing  grief, 
anxiety,  and  indignation  in  his  heart. 

"  Here  it  is,  sir,"  said  George,  stopping. 

"  What !  on  my  own  land !  "  he  cried.  "  How  *s 
this?  I  let  this  place  to  somebody  —  M'Whirter 
or  M'Glashan." 

"  Miss  M'Glashan  was  the  young  lady's  aunt,  sir, 
I  believe,"  returned  George. 

"Ay  —  dummies,"  said  the  Squire.  "I  shall 
whistle  for  my  rent  too.    Here,  take  my  horse." 

The  Admiral,  this  hot  afternoon,  was  sitting  by 
the  window  with  a  long  glass.  He  already  knew 
the  Squire  by  sight,  and  now,  seeing  him  dismount 
before  the  cottage  and  come  striding  through  the 


352    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

garden,  concluded  without  doubt  he  was  there  to 
ask  for  Esther's  hand. 

"  This  is  why  the  girl  is  not  yet  home,"  he 
thought ;  "  a  very  suitable  delicacy  on  young 
Naseby's  part.'7 

And  he  composed  himself  with  some  pomp,  an- 
swered the  loud  rattle  of  the  riding-whip  upon  the 
door  with  a  dulcet  invitation  to  enter,  and  com- 
ing forward  with  a  bow  and  a  smile,  "  Mr.  Naseby, 
I  believe,"  said  he. 

The  Squire  came  armed  for  battle;  took  in  his 
man  from  top  to  toe  in  one  rapid  and  scornful 
glance,  and  decided  on  a  course  at  once.  He  must 
let  the  fellow  see  that  he  understood  him. 

"You  are  Mr.  Van  Tromp?"  he  returned 
roughly,  and  without  taking  any  notice  of  the  prof- 
fered hand. 

"  The  same,  sir,"  replied  the  Admiral.  "  Pray 
be  seated." 

"  No,  sir,"  said  the  Squire  point-blank,  "  I  will 
not  be  seated.  I  am  told  that  you  are  an  admiral," 
he  added. 

"  No,  sir,  I  am  not  an  admiral,"  returned  Van 
Tromp,  who  now  began  to  grow  nettled  and  to 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  interview. 

"Then  why  do  you  call  yourself  one,  sir?" 

"  I  have  to  ask  your  pardon,  I  do  not,"  says 
Van  Tromp,  as  grand  as  the  Pope. 

But  nothing  was  of  avail  against  the  Squire. 

"You  sail  under  false  colours  from  beginning 
to  end,"  he  said.  "  Your  very  house  was  taken 
under  a  sham  name." 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    353 

"  It  is  not  my  house.  I  am  my  daughter's  guest," 
replied  the  Admiral.    "  If  it  were  my  house " 

"  Well?  "  said  the  Squire,  "  what  then?  hey?  " 

The  Admiral  looked  at  him  nobly,  but  was  silent. 

"  Look  here/'  said  Mr.  Naseby,  "  this  intimida- 
tion is  a  waste  of  time;  it  is  thrown  away  on  me, 
sir ;  it  will  not  succeed  with  me.  I  will  not  permit 
you  even  to  gain  time  by  your  fencing.  Now,  sir, 
I  presume  you  understand  what  brings  me  here." 

"  I  am  entirely  at  a  loss  to  account  for  your  in- 
trusion," bows  and  waves  Van  Tromp. 

"  I  will  try  to  tell  you,  then.  I  come  here  as  a 
father  "  —  down  came  the  riding-whip  upon  the 
table  —  "I  have  right  and  justice  upon  my  side. 
I  understand  your  calculations,  but  you  calculated 
without  me.  I  am  a  man  of  the  world,  and  I  see 
through  you  and  your  manoeuvres.  I  am  dealing 
now  with  a  conspiracy  —  I  stigmatise  it  as  such, 
and  I  will  expose  it  and  crush  it.  And  now  I  order 
you  to  tell  me  how  far  things  have  gone,  and 
whither  you  have  smuggled  my  unhappy  son." 

"  My  God,  sir !  "  Van  Tromp  broke  out,  "  I  have 
had  about  enough  of  this.  Your  son  ?  God  knows 
where  he  is  for  me !  What  the  devil  have  I  to  do 
with  your  son  ?  My  daughter  is  out,  for  the  matter 
of  that;  I  might  ask  you  where  she  is,  and  what 
would  you  say  to  that  ?  But  this  is  all  midsummer 
madness.  Name  your  business  distinctly  and  be 
off." 

"  How  often  am  I  to  tell  you  ?  "  cried  the  Squire. 
"  Where  did  your  daughter  take  my  son  to-day  in 
that  cursed  pony-carriage  ?  " 

23 


354    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

"  In  a  pony-carriage  ?  "  repeated  Van  Tromp. 

"Yes,  sir  —  with  luggage." 

"Luggage?"  Van  Tromp  had  turned  a  little 
pale. 

"  Luggage,  I  said  —  luggage !  "  shouted  Naseby. 
"  You  may  spare  me  this  dissimulation.  Where  's 
my  son?  You  are  speaking  to  a  father,  sir,  a 
father." 

"  But,  sir,  if  this  be  true,"  out  came  Van  Tromp 
in  a  new  key,  "  it  is  I  who  have  an  explanation  to 
demand." 

"  Precisely.  There  is  the  conspiracy,"  retorted 
Naseby.  "  Oh,"  he  added,  "lama  man  of  the 
world.    I  can  see  through  and  through  you." 

Van  Tromp  began  to  understand. 

"  You  speak  a  great  deal  about  being  a  father, 
Mr.  Naseby,"  said  he ;  "I  believe  you  forget  that 
the  appellation  is  common  to  both  of  us.  I  am  at 
a  loss  to  figure  to  myself,  however  dimly,  how  any 
man  —  I  have  not  said  any  gentleman  —  could  so 
brazenly  insult  another  as  you  have  been  insulting 
me  since  you  entered  this  house.  For  the  first  time 
I  appreciate  your  base  insinuations,  and  I  despise 
them  and  you.  You  were,  I  am  told,  a  manu- 
facturer ;  I  am  an  artist ;  I  have  seen  better  days ; 
I  have  moved  in  societies  where  you  would  not  be 
received,  and  dined  where  you  would  be  glad  to 
pay  a  pound  to  see  me  dining.  The  so-called 
aristocracy  of  wealth,  sir,  I  despise.  I  refuse  to 
help  you;  I  refuse  to  be  helped  by  you.  There 
lies  the  door." 

And  the  Admiral  stood  forth  in  a  halo. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    355 

It  was  then  that  Dick  entered.  He  had  been 
waiting  in  the  porch  for  some  time  back,  and 
Esther  had  been  listlessly  standing  by  his  side. 
He  had  put  out  his  hand  to  bar  her  entrance,  and 
she  had  submitted  without  surprise;  and  though 
she  seemed  to  listen,  she  scarcely  appeared  to  com- 
prehend. Dick,  on  his  part,  was  as  white  as  a 
sheet;  his  eyes  burned  and  his  lips  trembled  with 
anger  as  he  thrust  the  door  suddenly  open,  intro- 
duced Esther  with  ceremonious  gallantry,  and  stood 
forward  and  knocked  his  hat  firmer  on  his  head 
like  a  man  about  to  leap. 

"What  is  all  this?"  he  demanded. 

"  Is  this  your  father,  Mr.  Naseby?  "  inquired  the 
Admiral. 

"  It  is,"  said  the  young  man. 

"  I  make  you  my  compliments,"  returned  Van 
Tromp. 

"  Dick !  "  cried  his  father,  suddenly  breaking 
forth,  "  it  is  not  too  late,  is  it  ?  I  have  come  here 
in  time  to  save  you.  Come,  come  away  with  me 
• —  come  away  from  this  place." 

And  he  fawned  upon  Dick  with  his  hands. 

"  Keep  your  hands  off  me,"  cried  Dick,  not 
meaning  unkindness,  but  because  his  nerves  were 
shattered  by  so  many  successive  miseries. 

"  No,  no,"  said  the  old  man,  "  don't  repulse  your 
father,  Dick,  when  he  has  come  here  to  save  you. 
Don't  repulse  me,  my  boy.  Perhaps  I  have  not 
been  kind  to  you,  not  quite  considerate,  too  harsh ; 
my  boy,  it  was  not  for  want  of  love.  Think  of 
old  times.     I  was  kind  to  you  then,  was  I  not? 


3S6    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

When  you  were  a  child,  and  your  mother  was  with 
us."  Mr.  Naseby  was  interrupted  by  a  sort  of  sob. 
Dick  stood  looking  at  him  in  a  maze.  "  Come 
away,"  pursued  the  father  in  a  whisper;  "you 
need  not  be  afraid  of  any  consequences.  I  am  a 
man  of  the  world,  Dick;  and  she  can  have  no 
claim  on  you  —  no  claim,  I  tell  you ;  and  we  '11  be 
handsome  too,  Dick  —  we'll  give  them  a  good 
round  figure,  father  and  daughter,  and  there 's 
an  end." 

He  had  been  trying  to  get  Dick  towards  the 
door,  but  the  latter  stood  off. 

"  You  had  better  take  care,  sir,  how  you  insult 
that  lady,"  said  the  son,  as  black  as  night. 

"  You  would  not  choose  between  your  father 
and  your  mistress  ?  "  said  the  father. 

"  What  do  you  call  her,  sir  ?  "  cried  Dick,  high 
and  clear. 

Forbearance  and  patience  were  not  among  Mr. 
Naseby's  qualities. 

"  I  called  her  your  mistress,"  he  shouted,  "  and 
I  might  have  called  her  a " 

"  That  is  an  unmanly  lie,"  replied  Dick,  slowly. 

"Dick!"  cried  the  father,  "Dick!" 

"I  do  not  care,"  said  the  son,  strengthening 
himself  against  his  own  heart ;  "I  —  I  have  said 
it,  and  it 's  the  truth." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"  Dick,"  said  the  old  man  at  last,  in  a  voice  that 
was  shaken  as  by  a  gale  of  wind,  "  I  am  going. 
I  leave  you  with  your  friends,  sir  —  with  your 
friends.    I  came  to  serve  you,  and  now  I  go  away 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE   357 

a  broken  man.  For  years  I  have  seen  this  com- 
ing, and  now  it  has  come.  You  never  loved  me. 
Now  you  have  been  the  death  of  me.  You  may 
boast  of  that.  Now  I  leave  you.  God  pardon 
you!" 

With  that  he  was  gone;  and  the  three  who  re- 
mained together  heard  his  horse's  hoofs  descend 
the  lane.  Esther  had  not  made  a  sign  throughout 
the  interview,  and  still  kept  silence  now  that  it 
was  over ;  but  the  Admiral,  who  had  once  or  twice 
moved  forward  and  drawn  back  again,  now  ad- 
vanced for  good. 

"  You  are  a  man  of  spirit,  sir,"  said  he  to  Dick ; 
"  but  though  I  am  no  friend  to  parental  inter- 
ference, I  will  say  that  you  are  heavy  on  the  gov- 
ernor." Then  he  added  with  a  chuckle:  "You 
began,  Richard,  with  a  silver  spoon,  and  here  you 
are  in  the  water  like  the  rest.  Work,  work,  noth- 
ing like  work.  You  have  parts,  you  have  manners ; 
why,  with  application,  you  may  die  a  millionaire !  " 

Dick  shook  himself ;  he  took  Esther  by  the  hand, 
looking  at  her  mournfully. 

"  Then  this  is  farewell,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  she  answered.  There  was  no  tone  in 
her  voice,  and  she  did  not  return  his  gaze. 

"  For  ever,"  added  Dick. 

"  For  ever,"  she  repeated  mechanically. 

"  I  have  had  hard  measure,"  he  continued.  "  In 
time,  I  believe  I  could  have  shown  you  I  was 
worthy,  and  there  was  no  time  long  enough  to 
show  how  much  I  loved  you.  But  it  was  not  to 
be.    I  have  lost  all." 


358    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

He  relinquished  her  hand,  still  looking  at  her, 
and  she  turned  to  leave  the  room. 

"  Why,  what  in  fortune's  name  is  the  meaning 
of  all  this  ?  "  cried  Van  Tromp.  "  Esther,  come 
back!" 

"Let  her  go,"  said  Dick,  and  he  watched  her 
disappear  with  strangely  mingled  feelings.  For 
he  had  fallen  into  that  stage  when  men  have  the 
vertigo  of  misfortune,  court  the  strokes  of  destiny, 
and  rush  towards  anything  decisive,  that  it  may 
free  them  from  suspense  though  at  the  cost  of 
ruin.  It  is  one  of  the  many  minor  forms  of 
suicide. 

"  She  did  not  love  me,"  he  said,  turning  to  her 
father. 

"  I  feared  as  much,"  said  he,  "  when  I  sounded 
her.  Poor  Dick,  poor  Dick!  And  yet  I  believe 
I  am  as  much  cut  up  as  you  are.  I  was  born  to 
see  others  happy." 

"You  forget,"  returned  Dick,  with  something 
like  a  sneer,  "  that  I  am  now  a  pauper." 

Van  Tromp  snapped  his  fingers. 

"  Tut !  "  said  he ;  "  Esther  has  plenty  for  us  all." 

Dick  looked  at  him  with  some  wonder.  It  had 
never  dawned  upon  him  that  the  shiftless,  thrift- 
less, worthless,  sponging  parasite  was  yet,  after  all 
and  in  spite  of  all,  not  mercenary  in  the  issue  of 
his  thoughts;  yet  so  it  was. 

"  Now,"  said  Dick,  "  I  must  go." 

"  Go?  "  cried  Van  Tromp.  "  Where?  Not  one 
foot,  Mr.  Richard  Naseby.  Here  you  shall  stay 
in  the  meantime!   and  —  well,  and  do  something 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    359 

practical  —  advertise  for  a  situation  as  private  sec- 
retary —  and  when  you  have  it,  go  and  welcome. 
But  in  the  meantime,  sir,  no  false  pride;  we  must 
stay  with  our  friends ;  we  must  sponge  awhile  on 
Papa  Van  Tromp,  who  has  sponged  so  often  upon 
us." 

"  By  God,"  cried  Dick,  "  I  believe  you  are  the 
best  of  the  lot." 

"  Dick,  my  boy,"  replied  the  Admiral,  winking, 
"  you  mark  me,  I  am  not  the  worst." 

"  Then  why,"  began  Dick,  and  then  paused. 
"  But  Esther,"  he  began  again,  once  more  to  in- 
terrupt himself.  "  The  fact  is,  Admiral,"  he  came 
out  with  it  roundly  now,  "  your  daughter  wished 
to  run  away  from  you  to-day,  and  I  only  brought 
her  back  with  difficulty." 

"In  the  pony-carriage?"  asked  the  Admiral, 
with  the  silliness  of  extreme  surprise. 

"  Yes,"  Dick  answered. 

"Why,  what  the  devil  was  she  running  away 
from?" 

Dick  found  the  question  unusually  hard  to 
answer. 

"  Why,"  said  he,  "  you  know  you  're  a  bit  of  a 
rip." 

"  I  behave  to  that  girl,  sir,  like  an  archdeacon," 
replied  Van  Tromp  warmly. 

"  Well  —  excuse  me  —  but  you  know  you 
drink,"  insisted  Dick. 

"  I  know  that  I  was  a  sheet  in  the  wind's  eye, 
sir,  once  —  once  only,  since  I  reached  this  place," 
retorted  the  Admiral.    "  And  even  then  I  was  fit 


360    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

for  any  drawing-room.  I  should  like  you  to  tell 
me  how  many  fathers,  lay  and  clerical,  go  up-stairs 
every  day  with  a  face  like  a  lobster  and  cod's 
eyes  —  and  are  dull,  upon  the  back  of  it  —  not 
even  mirth  for  the  money!  No,  if  that's  what 
she  runs  for,  all  I  say  is,  let  her  run." 

"You  see,"  Dick  tried  it  again,  "she  has 
fancies " 

"  Confound  her  fancies ! "  cried  Van  Tromp. 
"I  used  her  kindly;  she  had  her  own  way;  I 
was  her  father.  Besides,  I  had  taken  quite  a  lik- 
ing to  the  girl,  and  meant  to  stay  with  her  for 
good.  But  I  tell  you  what  it  is,  Dick,  since  she 
has  trifled  with  you  —  oh,  yes,  she  did  though! 
—  and  since  her  old  papa  's  not  good  enough  for 
her  —  the  devil  take  her,  I  say." 

"  You  will  be  kind  to  her  at  least  ?  "  said  Dick. 

"  I  never  was  unkind  to  a  living  soul,"  replied 
the  Admiral.     "  Firm  I  can  be,  but  not  unkind." 

"  Well,"  said  Dick,  offering  his  hand.  "  God 
bless  you,  and  farewell." 

The  Admiral  swore  by  all  his  gods  he  should 
not  go.  "  Dick,"  he  said,  "  you  are  a  selfish  dog; 
you  forget  your  old  Admiral.  You  would  n't  leave 
him  alone,  would  you?" 

It  was  useless  to  remind  him  that  the  house  was 
not  his  to  dispose  of,  that  being  a  class  of  consid- 
erations to  which  his  intelligence  was  closed;  so 
Dick  tore  himself  off  by  force,  and  shouting  a  good- 
bye, made  off  along  the  lane  to  Thymebury. 


CHAPTER    IX 

IN   WHICH   THE   LIBERAL   EDITOR   APPEARS 
AS    "DEUS   EX   MACHINA" 

IT  was  perhaps  a  week  later,  as  old  Mr.  Naseby 
sat  brooding  in  his  study,  that  there  was 
shown  in  upon  him,  on  urgent  business,  a 
little  hectic  gentleman  shabbily  attired. 

"  I  have  to  ask  pardon  for  this  intrusion,  Mr. 
Naseby,"  he  said ;  "  but  I  come  here  to  perform  a 
duty.  My  card  has  been  sent  in,  but  perhaps  you 
may  not  know,  what  it  does  not  tell  you,  that  I  am 
the  editor  of  the  Thymebury  Star." 

Mr.  Naseby  looked  up  indignant. 

"  I  cannot  fancy,"  he  said,  "  that  we  have  much 
in  common  to  discuss." 

"  I  have  only  a  word  to  say  —  one  piece  of  in- 
formation to  communicate.  Some  months  ago,  we 
had  —  you  will  pardon  my  referring  to  it,  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  —  but  we  had  an  unfortunate 
difference  as  to  facts." 

"  Have  you  come  to  apologise  ? "  asked  the 
Squire  sternly. 

"  No,  sir ;  to  mention  a  circumstance.  On  the 
morning  in  question,  your  son,  Mr.  Richard 
Naseby " 


362    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

"  I  do  not  permit  his  name  to  be  mentioned." 
"  You  will,  however,  permit  me,"  replied  the 
Editor. 

"  You  are  cruel,"  said  the  Squire.  He  was  right, 
he  was  a  broken  man. 

Then  the  Editor  described  Dick's  warning  visit; 
and  how  he  had  seen  in  the  lad's  eye  that  there 
was  a  thrashing  in  the  wind,  and  had  escaped 
through  pity  only  —  so  the  Editor  put  it  — 
"through  pity  only,  sir.  And  oh,  sir,"  he  went 
on,  "  if  you  had  seen  him  speaking  up  for  you,  I 
am  sure  you  would  have  been  proud  of  your  son. 
I  know  I  admired  the  lad  myself,  and  indeed 
that 's  what  brings  me  here." 

"  I  have  misjudged  him,"  said  the  Squire.  "  Do 
you  know  where  he  is  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  he  lies  sick  at  Thymebury." 
"  You  can  take  me  to  him  ?  " 
"  I  can." 

"  I  pray  God  he  may  forgive  me,"  said  the  father. 
And  he  and  the  Editor  made  post-haste  for  the 
county  town. 

Next  day  the  report  went  abroad  that  Mr. 
Richard  was  reconciled  to  his  father  and  had  been 
taken  home  to  Naseby  House.  He  was  still  ailing, 
it  was  said,  and  the  Squire  nursed  him  like  the 
proverbial  woman.  Rumour  in  this  instance  did 
no  more  than  justice  to  the  truth;  and  over  the 
sick-bed  many  confidences  were  exchanged,  and 
clouds  that  had  been  growing  for  years  passed 
away  in  a  few  hours,  and  as  fond  mankind  loves 
to  hope,  for  ever.    Many  long  talks  had  been  fruit- 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    363 

less  in  external  action,  though  fruitful  for  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  pair;  but  at  last,  one  showery 
Tuesday,  the  Squire  might  have  been  observed 
upon  his  way  to  the  cottage  in  the  lane. 

The  old  gentleman  had  arranged  his  features 
with  a  view  to  self-command,  rather  than  external 
cheerfulness;  and  he  entered  the  cottage  on  his 
visit  of  conciliation  with  the  bearing  of  a  clergy- 
man come  to  announce  a  death. 

The  Admiral  and  his  daughter  were  both  within, 
and  both  looked  upon  their  visitor  with  more  sur- 
prise than  favour. 

"  Sir,"  said  he  to  Van  Tromp,  "  I  am  told  I 
have  done  you  much  injustice." 

There  came  a  little  sound  in  Esther's  throat,  and 
she  put  her  hand  suddenly  to  her  heart. 

"  You  have,  sir ;  and  the  acknowledgment  suf- 
fices," replied  the  Admiral.  "I  am  prepared,  sir, 
to  be  easy  with  you,  since  I  hear  you  have  made  it 
up  with  my  friend  Dick.  But  let  me  remind  you 
that  you  owe  some  apologies  to  this  young  lady 
also." 

"  I  shall  have  the  temerity  to  ask  for  more  than 
her  forgiveness,"  said  the  Squire.  "  Miss  Van 
Tromp,"  he  continued,  "  once  I  was  in  great  dis- 
tress, and  knew  nothing  of  you  or  your  character ; 
but  I  believe  you  will  pardon  a  few  rough  words 
to  an  old  man  who  asks  forgiveness  from  his  heart. 
I  have  heard  much  of  you  since  then;  for  you 
have  a  fervent  advocate  in  my  house.  I  believe 
you  will  understand  that  I  speak  of  my  son.  He 
is,  I  regret  to  say,  very  far  from  well;    he  docs 


364    THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE 

not  pick  up  as  the  doctors  had  expected;  he  has 
a  great  deal  upon  his  mind,  and,  to  tell  the  truth, 
my  girl,  if  you  won't  help  us,  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
lose  him.  Come,  now,  forgive  him !  I  was  angry 
with  him  once  myself,  and  I  found  I  was  in  the 
wrong.  This  is  only  a  misunderstanding,  like  the 
other,  believe  me;  and,  with  one  kind  movement, 
you  may  give  happiness  to  him,  and  to  me,  and  to 
yourself/ ' 

Esther  made  a  movement  towards  the  door,  but 
long  before  she  reached  it  she  had  broken  forth 
sobbing. 

"  It  is  all  right,"  said  the  Admiral ;  "  I  under- 
stand the  sex.  Let  me  make  you  my  compliments, 
Mr.  Naseby." 

The  Squire  was  too  much  relieved  to  be  angry. 

"  My  dear,"  said  he  to  Esther,  "  you  must  not 
agitate  yourself." 

"  She  had  better  go  up  and  see  him  right  away," 
suggested  Van  Tromp. 

"  I  had  not  ventured  to  propose  it,"  replied  the 
Squire.     "  Les  convenances,  I  believe " 

"  Je  m'en  fiche,"  cried  the  Admiral,  snapping  his 
fingers.  "  She  shall  go  and  see  my  friend  Dick. 
Run  and  get  ready,  Esther." 

Esther  obeyed. 

"  She  has  not  —  has  not  run  away  again  ?  "  in- 
quired Mr.  Naseby,  as  soon  as  she  was  gone. 

"  No,"  said  Van  Tromp,  "  not  again.  She  is  a 
devilish  odd  girl  though,  mind  you  that." 

"  But  I  cannot  stomach  the  man  with  the  car- 
buncles," thought  the  Squire. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    LIE    365 

And  this  is  why  there  is  a  new  household  and 
a  brand-new  baby  in  Naseby  Dower  House;  and 
why  the  great  Van  Tromp  lives  in  pleasant  style 
upon  the  shores  of  England;  and  why  twenty-six 
individual  copies  of  the  Thymebury  Star  are  re- 
ceived daily  at  the  door  of  Naseby  House. 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

EVERY  night  in  the  year,  four  of  us  sat  in 
the  small  parlour  of  the  George  at  Deben- 
ham  —  the  undertaker,  and  the  landlord, 
and  Fettes,  and  myself.  Sometimes  there  would 
be  more;  but  blow  high,  blow  low,  come  rain  or 
snow  or  frost,  we  four  would  be  each  planted  in 
his  own  particular  arm-chair.  Fettes  was  an  old 
drunken  Scotchman,  a  man  of  education  obviously, 
and  a  man  of  some  property,  since  he  lived  in  idle- 
ness. He  had  come  to  Debenham  years  ago,  while 
still  young,  and  by  a  mere  continuance  of  living 
had  grown  to  be  an  adopted  townsman.  His  blue 
camlet  cloak  was  a  local  antiquity,  like  the  church- 
spire.  His  place  in  the  parlour  at  the  George,  his 
absence  from  church,  his  old,  crapulous,  disrepu- 
table vices,  were  all  things  of  course  in  Debenham. 
He  had  some  vague  Radical  opinions  and  some 
fleeting  infidelities,  which  he  would  now  and 
again  set  forth  and  emphasise  with  tottering 
slaps  upon  the  table.  He  drank  rum  —  five  glasses 
regularly  every  evening;  and  for  the  greater 
portion  of  his  nightly  visit  to  the  George  sat,  with 
his  glass  in  his  right  hand,  in  a  state  of  melancholy 
alcoholic  saturation.  We  called  him  the  Doctor,  for 
he  was  supposed  to  have  some  special  knowledge 
of  medicine,  and  had  been  known,  upon  a  pinch,  to 

24 


370     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

set  a  fracture  or  reduce  a  dislocation;  but  beyond 
these  slight  particulars,  we  had  no  knowledge  of 
his  character  and  antecedents. 

One  dark  winter  night  —  it  had  struck  nine 
some  time  before  the  landlord  joined  us  —  there 
was  a  sick  man  in  the  George,  a  great  neighbouring 
proprietor  suddenly  struck  down  with  apoplexy  on 
his  way  to  Parliament;  and  the  great  man's  still 
greater  London  doctor  had  been  telegraphed  to  his 
bedside.  It  was  the  first  time  that  such  a  thing  had 
happened  in  Debenham,  for  the  railway  was  but 
newly  open,  and  we  were  all  proportionately  moved 
by  the  occurrence. 

"  He  's  come,"  said  the  landlord,  after  he  had 
filled  and  lighted  his  pipe. 

"  He  ?  "  said  I.    "  Who  ?  —  not  the  doctor  ?  * 

"  Himself,"  replied  our  host. 

"What  is  his  name?" 

"  Dr.  Macfarlane,"  said  the  landlord. 

Fettes  was  far  through  his  third  tumbler, 
stupidly  fuddled,  now  nodding  over,  now  staring 
mazily  around  him ;  but  at  the  last  word  he  seemed 
to  awaken,  and  repeated  the  name  "  Macfarlane  " 
twice,  quietly  enough  the  first  time,  but  with 
sudden  emotion  at  the  second. 

"Yes,"  said  the  landlord,  "that's  his  name, 
Dr.  Wolfe  Macfarlane." 

Fettes  became  instantly  sober;  his  eyes  awoke, 
his  voice  became  clear,  loud,  and  steady,  his 
language  forcible  and  earnest.  We  were  all 
startled  by  the  transformation,  as  if  a  man  had 
risen  from  the  dead. 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    371 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  "  I  am  afraid  I 
have  not  been  paying  much  attention  to  your  talk. 
Who  is  this  Wolfe  Macfarlane?  "  And  then,  when 
he  had  heard  the  landlord  out,  "  It  cannot  be,  it 
cannot  be,"  he  added ;  "  and  yet  I  would  like  well 
to  see  him  face  to  face." 

"  Do  you  know  him,  Doctor  ?  "  asked  the  under- 
taker, with  a  gasp. 

"  God  forbid !  "  was  the  reply.  "  And  yet  the 
name  is  a  strange  one ;  it  were  too  much  to  fancy 
two.    Tell  me,  landlord,  is  he  old  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  the  host,  "  he 's  not  a  young  man, 
to  be  sure,  and  his  hair  is  white;  but  he  looks 
younger  than  you." 

"  He  is  older,  though ;  years  older.  But,"  with 
a  slap  upon  the  table,  "  it 's  the  rum  you  see  in  my 
face  —  rum  and  sin.  This  man,  perhaps,  may  have 
an  easy  conscience  and  a  good  digestion.  Con- 
science !  Hear  me  speak.  You  would  think  I  was 
some  good,  old,  decent  Christian,  would  you  not? 
But  no,  not  I ;  I  never  canted.  Voltaire  might  have 
canted  if  he  'd  stood  in  my  shoes ;  but  the  brains  " 
—  with  a  rattling  fillip  on  his  bald  head  —  t  the 
brains  were  clear  and  active,  and  I  saw  and  made 
no  deductions." 

"  If  you  know  this  doctor,"  I  ventured  to  re- 
mark, after  a  somewhat  awful  pause,  "  I  should 
gather  that  you  do  not  share  the  landlord's  good 
opinion." 

Fettes  paid  no  regard  to  me. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  with  sudden  decision,  "  I  must 
see  him  face  to  face." 


372     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

There  was  another  pause,  and  then  a  door  was 
closed  rather  sharply  on  the  first  floor,  and  a  step 
was  heard  upon  the  stair. 

"  That 's  the  doctor,"  cried  the  landlord.  "  Look 
sharp,  and  you  can  catch  him." 

It  was  but  two  steps  from  the  small  parlour  to 
the  door  of  the  old  George  Inn ;  the  wide  oak  stair- 
case landed  almost  in  the  street;  there  was  room 
for  a  Turkey  rug  and  nothing  more  between  the 
threshold  and  the  last  round  of  the  descent;  but 
this  little  space  was  every  evening  brilliantly  lit  up, 
not  only  by  the  light  upon  the  stair  and  the  great 
signal-lamp  below  the  sign,  but  by  the  warm  radi- 
ance of  the  bar-room  window.  The  George  thus 
brightly  advertised  itself  to  passers-by  in  the  cold 
street.  Fettes  walked  steadily  to  the  spot,  and  we, 
who  were  hanging  behind,  beheld  the  two  men 
meet,  as  one  of  them  had  phrased  it,  face  to  face. 
Dr.  Macfarlane  was  alert  and  vigorous.  His  white 
/hair  set  off  his  pale  and  placid,  although  energetic, 
countenance.  He  was  richly  dressed  in  the  finest 
of  broadcloth  and  the  whitest  of  linen,  with  a  great 
gold  watchchain,  and  studs  and  spectacles  of  the 
same  precious  material.  He  wore  a  broad-folded 
tie,  white  and  speckled  with  lilac,  and  he  carried  on 
his  arm  a  comfortable  driving-coat  of  fur.  There 
was  no  doubt  but  he  became  his  years,  breathing, 
as  he  did,  of  wealth  and  consideration;  and  it 
was  a  surprising  contrast  to  see  our  parlour  sot 
—  bald,  dirty,  pimpled,  and  robed  in  his  old  cam- 
let cloak  —  confront  him  at  the  bottom  of  the 
stairs. 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    373 


"  Macfarlane! "  he  said  somewhat  loudly,  more 
like  a  herald  than  a  friend. 

The  great  doctor  pulled  up  short  on  the  fourth 
step,  as  though  the  familiarity  of  the  address  sur- 
prised and  somewhat  shocked  his  dignity. 

f?  Toddy  Macfarlane !  "  repeated  Fettes. 

The  London  man  almost  staggered.  He  stared 
for  the  swiftest  of  seconds  at  the  man  before  him, 
glanced  behind  him  with  a  sort  of  scare,  and  then 
in  a  startled  whisper,  "  Fettes !  "  he  said,  "  you ! 

"  Ay,"  said  the  other,  "  me !  Did  you  think  I 
was  dead  too?  We  are  not  so  easy  shut  of  our 
acquaintance.' ' 

"  Hush,  hush !  "  exclaimed  the  doctor.  "  Hush, 
hush !  this  meeting  is  so  unexpected  —  I  can  see 
you  are  unmanned.  I  hardly  knew  you,  I  confess, 
at  first ;  but  I  am  overjoyed  —  overjoyed  to  have 
this  opportunity.  For  the  present  it  must  be  how- 
d'ye-do  and  good-bye  in  one,  for  my  fly  is  waiting, 
and  I  must  not  fail  the  train;  but  you  shall  — 
let  me  see  —  yes  —  you  shall  give  me  your  ad- 
dress, and  you  can  count  on  early  news  of  me. 
We  must  do  something  for  you,  Fettes.  I  fear  you 
are  out  at  elbows ;  but  we  must  see  to  that  for  auld 
lang  syne,  as  once  we  sang  at  suppers." 

"  Money !  "  cried  Fettes ;  "  money  from  you ! 
The  money  that  I  had  from  you  is  lying  where 
I  cast  it  in  the  rain." 

Dr.  Macfarlane  had  talked  himself  into  some 
measure  of  superiority  and  confidence,  but  the  un- 
common energy  of  this  refusal  cast  him  back  into 
his  first  confusion. 


374     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

A  horrible,  ugly  look  came  and  went  across  his 
almost  venerable  countenance.  "  My  dear  fellow," 
he  said,  "be  it  as  you  please ;  my  last  thought  is  to 
offend  you.  I  would  intrude  on  none.  I  will  leave 
you  my  address,  however " 

"  I  do  not  wish  it  —  I  do  not  wish  to  know 
the  roof  that  shelters  you,"  interrupted  the  other. 
"  I  heard  your  name ;  I  feared  it  might  be  you ;  I 
wished  to  know  if,  after  all,  there  were  a  God; 
I  know  now  that  there  is  none.     Begone ! " 

He  still  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  rug,  between 
the  stair  and  doorway ;  and  the  great  London  phy- 
sician, in  order  to  escape,  would  be  forced  to  step 
to  one  side.  It  was  plain  that  he  hesitated  before 
the  thought  of  this  humiliation.  White  as  he  was, 
there  was  a  dangerous  glitter  in  his  spectacles; 
but  while  he  still  paused  uncertain,  he  became 
aware  that  the  driver  of  his  fly  was  peering  in  from 
the  street  at  this  unusual  scene  and  caught  a 
glimpse  at  the  same  time  of  our  little  body  from 
the  parlour,  huddled  by  the  corner  of  the  bar.  The 
presence  of  so  many  witnesses  decided  him  at  once 
to  flee.  He  crouched  together,  brushing  on  the 
wainscot,  and  made  a  dart  like  a  serpent,  striking 
for  the  door.  But  his  tribulation  was  not  yet 
entirely  at  an  end,  for  even  as  he  was  passing 
Fettes  clutched  him  by  the  arm  and  these  words 
came  in  a  whisper,  and  yet  painfully  distinct, 
"  Have  you  seen  it  again  ?  " 

The  great  rich  London  doctor  cried  out  aloud 
with  a  sharp,  throttling  cry;  he  dashed  his  ques- 
tioner across  the  open  space,  and,  with  his  hands 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    375 

over  his  head,  fled  out  of  the  door  like  a  detected 
thief.  Before  it  had  occurred  to  one  of  us  to  make 
a  movement  the  fly  was  already  rattling  toward  the 
station.  The  scene  was  over  like  a  dream,  but  the 
dream  had  left  proofs  and  traces  of  its  passage. 
Next  day  the  servant  found  the  fine  gold  spectacles 
broken  on  the  threshold,  and  that  very  night  we 
were  all  standing  breathless  by  the  bar-room 
window,  and  Fettes  at  our  side,  sober,  pale,  and 
resolute  in  look. 

"  God  protect  us,  Mr.  Fettes !  "  said  the  landlord, 
coming  first  into  possession  of  his  customary 
senses.  "  What  in  the  universe  is  all  this  ?  These 
are  strange  things  you  have  been  saying." 

Fettes  turned  toward  us;  he  looked  us  each  in 
succession  in  the  face.  "  See  if  you  can  hold  your 
tongues,"  said  he.  "  That  man  Macfarlane  is  not 
safe  to  cross ;  those  that  have  done  so  already  have 
repented  it  too  late." 

And  then,  without  so  much  as  finishing  his  third 
glass,  far  less  waiting  for  the  other  two,  he  bade  us 
good-bye  and  went  forth,  under  the  lamp  of  the 
hotel,  into  the  black  night. 

We  three  turned  to  our  places  in  the  parlour,  with 
the  big  red  fire  and  four  clear  candles ;  and  as  we 
recapitulated  what  had  passed  the  first  chill  of  our 
surprise  soon  changed  into  a  glow  of  curiosity.  We 
sat  late;  it  was  the  latest  session  I  have  known  in 
the  old  George.  Each  man,  before  we  parted,  had 
his  theory  that  he  was  bound  to  prove;  and  none 
of  us  had  any  nearer  business  in  this  world  than  to 
track  out  the  past  of  our  condemned  companion. 


376     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

and  surprise  the  secret  that  he  shared  with  the  great 
London  doctor.  It  is  no  great  boast,  but  I  believe 
I  was  a  better  hand  at  worming  out  a  story  than 
either  of  my  fellows  at  the  George;  and  perhaps 
there  is  now  no  other  man  alive  who  could  narrate 
to  you  the  following  foul  and  unnatural  events. 

In  his  young  days  Fettes  studied  medicine  in  the 
schools  of  Edinburgh.  He  had  talent  of  a  kind, 
the  talent  that  picks  up  swiftly  what  it  hears  and 
readily  retails  it  for  its  own.  He  worked  little  at 
home  j  but  he  was  civil,  attentive,  and  intelligent  in 
the  presence  of  his  masters.  They  soon  picked  him 
out  as  a  lad  who  listened  closely  and  remembered 
well ;  nay,  strange  as  it  seemed  to  me  when  I  first 
heard  it,  he  was  in  those  days  well  favoured,  and 
pleased  by  his  exterior.  There  was,  at  that  period, 
a  certain  extramural  teacher  of  anatomy,  whom  I 
shall  here  designate  by  the  letter  K.  His  name 
was  subsequently  too  well  known.  The  man  who 
bore  it  skulked  through  the  streets  of  Edinburgh 
in  disguise,  while  the  mob  that  applauded  at  the 
execution  of  Burke  called  loudly  for  the  blood  of 

his  employer.    But  Mr.  K was  then  at  the  top 

of  his  vogue;  he  enjoyed  a  popularity  due  partly 
to  his  own  talent  and  address,  partly  to  the  inca- 
pacity of  his  rival,  the  university  professor.  The 
students,  at  least,  swore  by  his  name,  and  Fettes 
believed  himself,  and  was  believed  by  others,  to 
have  laid  the  foundations  of  success  when  he  had 
acquired  the  favour  of  this  meteorically  famous 

man.    ^Ir.  K was  a  bon  vivant  as  well  as  an 

accomplished  teacher ;  he  liked  a  sly  illusion  no  less 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER     377 

than  a  careful  preparation.  In  both  capacities 
Fettes  enjoyed  and  deserved  his  notice,  and  by  the 
second  year  of  his  attendance  he  held  the  half- 
regular  position  of  second  demonstrator  or  sub- 
assistant  in  his  class. 

In  this  capacity,  the  charge  of  the  theatre  and 
lecture-room  devolved  in  particular  upon  his 
shoulders.  He  had  to  answer  for  the  cleanliness  of 
the  premises  and  the  conduct  of  the  other  students, 
and  it  was  a  part  of  his  duty  to  supply,  receive,  and 
divide  the  various  subjects.  It  was  with  a  view  to 
this  last  —  at  that  time  very  delicate  —  affair  that 

he  was  lodged  by  Mr.  K in  the  same  wynd, 

and  at  last  in  the  same  building,  with  the  dissecting- 
rooms.  Here,  after  a  night  of  turbulent  pleasures, 
his  hand  still  tottering,  his  sight  still  misty  and 
confused,  he  would  be  called  out  of  bed  in  the 
black  hours  before  the  winter  dawn  by  the  unclean 
and  desperate  interlopers  who  supplied  the  table. 
He  would  open  the  door  to  these  men,  since  in-  * 
famous  throughout  the  land.  He  would  help  them 
with  their  tragic  burthen,  pay  them  their  sordid 
price,  and  remain  alone,  when  they  were  gone,  with 
the  unfriendly  relics  of  humanity.  From  such  a 
scene  he  would  return  to  snatch  another  hour  or 
two  of  slumber,  to  repair  the  abuses  of  the  night, 
and  refresh  himself  for  the  labours  of  the  day. 

Few  lads  could  have  been  more  insensible  to  the 
impressions  of  a  life  thus  passed  among  the  en- 
signs of  mortality.  His  mind  was  closed  against 
all  general  considerations.  He  was  incapable  of 
interest  in  the  fate  and  fortunes  of  another,  the 


378     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

slave  of  his  own  desires  and  low  ambitions.  Cold, 
light,  and  selfish  in  the  last  resort,  he  had  that 
modicum  of  prudence,  miscalled  morality,  which 
keeps  a  man  from  inconvenient  drunkenness  or 
punishable  theft.  He  coveted,  besides,  a  measure 
of  consideration  from  his  masters  and  his  fellow- 
pupils,  and  he  had  no  desire  to  fail  conspicuously 
in  the  external  parts  of  life.  Thus  he  made  it  his 
pleasure  to  gain  some  distinction  in  his  studies,  and 
day  after  day  rendered  unimpeachable  eye-service 

to  his  employer,   Mr.    K .     For  his  day  of 

work  he  indemnified  himself  by  nights  of  roaring, 
blackguardly  enjoyment;  and  when  that  balance 
had  been  struck,  the  organ  that  he  called  his 
conscience  declared  itself  content. 

The  supply  of  subjects  was  a  continual  trouble  to 
him  as  well  as  to  his  master.  In  that  large  and 
busy  class,  the  raw  material  of  the  anatomists  kept 
perpetually  running  out;  and  the  business  thus 
rendered  necessary  was  not  only  unpleasant  in  it- 
self, but  threatened  dangerous  consequences  to  all 
who  were  concerned.     It  was  the  policy  of  Mr. 

K to  ask  no  questions  in  his  dealings  with  the 

trade.  "  They  bring  the  body,  and  we  pay  the 
price,"  he  used  to  say,  dwelling  on  the  alliteration 
— "  quid  pro  quo."  And,  again,  and  somewhat 
profanely,  "  Ask  no  questions,"  he  would  tell  his 
assistants,  "  for  conscience'  sake."  There  was  no 
understanding  that  the  subjects  were  provided  by 
the  crime  of  murder.  Had  that  idea  been  broached 
to  him  in  words,  he  would  have  recoiled  in  horror ; 
but  the  lightness  of  his  speech  upon  so  grave  a 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    379 

matter  was,  in  itself,  an  offence  against  good  man- 
ners, and  a  temptation  to  the  men  with  whom  he 
dealt.  Fettes,  for  instance,  had  often  remarked  to 
himself  upon  the  singular  freshness  of  the  bodies. 
He  had  been  struck  again  and  again  by  the  hang- 
dog, abominable  looks  of  the  ruffians  who  came  to 
him  before  the  dawn ;  and  putting  things  together 
clearly  in  his  private  thoughts,  he  perhaps  attrib- 
uted a  meaning  too  immoral  and  too  categorical 
to  the  unguarded  counsels  of  his  master.  He 
understood  his  duty,  in  short,  to  have  three 
branches:  to  take  what  was  brought,  to  pay  the 
price,  and  to  avert  the  eye  from  any  evidence  of 
crime. 

One  November  morning  this  policy  of  silence 
was  put  sharply  to  the  test.  He  had  been  awake  all 
night  with  a  racking  toothache  —  pacing  his  room 
like  a  caged  beast  or  throwing  himself  in  fury  on 
his  bed  —  and  had  fallen  at  last  into  that  pro- 
found, uneasy  slumber  that  so  often  follows  on  a 
night  of  pain,  when  he  was  awakened  by  the  third 
or  fourth  angry  repetition  of  the  concerted  signal. 
There  was  a  thin,  bright  moonshine ;  it  was  bitter 
cold,  windy,  and  frosty;  the  town  had  not  yet 
awakened,  but  an  indefinable  stir  already  preluded 
the  noise  and  business  of  the  day.  The  ghouls 
had  come  later  than  usual,  and  they  seemed  more 
than  usually  eager  to  be  gone.  Fettes,  sick  with 
sleep,  lighted  them  up-stairs.  He  heard  their 
grumbling  Irish  voices  through  a  dream;  and  as 
they  stripped  the  sack  from  their  sad  merchandise 
he  leaned  dozing,  with  his  shoulder  propped  against 


380    THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

the  wall ;  he  had  to  shake  himself  to  find  the  men 
their  money.  As  he  did  so  his  eyes  lighted  on  the 
dead  face.  He  started ;  he  took  two  steps  nearer, 
with  the  candle  raised. 

"God  Almighty!"  he  cried.  "That  is  Jane 
Galbraith!" 

The  men  answered  nothing,  but  they  shuffled 
nearer  the  door. 

"  I  know  her,  I  tell  you,"  he  continued.  "  She 
was  alive  and  hearty  yesterday.  It 's  impossible 
she  can  be  dead ;  it 's  impossible  you  should  have 
got  this  body  fairly." 

"  Sure,  sir,  you  're  mistaken  entirely,"  said  one 
of  the  men. 

But  the  other  looked  Fettes  darkly  in  the  eyes, 
and  demanded  the  money  on  the  spot. 

It  was  impossible  to  misconceive  the  threat  or  to 
exaggerate  the  danger.  The  lad's  heart  failed  him. 
He  stammered  some  excuses,  counted  out  the  sum, 
and  saw  his  hateful  visitors  depart.  No  sooner 
were  they  gone  than  he  hastened  to  confirm  his 
doubts.  By  a  dozen  unquestionable  marks  he 
identified  the  girl  he  had  jested  with  the  day  before. 
He  saw,  with  horror,  marks  upon  her  body  that 
might  well  betoken  violence.  A  panic  seized  him, 
and  he  took  refuge  in  his  room.  There  he  reflected 
at  length  over  the  discovery  that  he  had  made; 

considered   soberly  the  bearing  of  Mr.   K 's 

instructions  and  the  danger  to  himself  of  interfer- 
ence in  so  serious  a  business,  and  at  last,  in  sore 
perplexity,  determined  to  wait  for  the  advice  of  his 
immediate  superior,  the  class  assistant. 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    381 

This  was  a  young  doctor,  Wolfe  Macfarlane,  a 
high  favourite  among  all  the  reckless  students, 
clever,  dissipated,  and  unscrupulous  to  the  last 
degree.  He  had  travelled  and  studied  abroad. 
His  manners  were  agreeable  and  a  little  forward. 
He  was  an  authority  on  the  stage,  skilful  on  the 
ice  or  the  links  with  skate  or  golf -club ;  he  dressed 
with  nice  audacity,  and,  to  put  the  finishing  touch 
upon  his  glory,  he  kept  a  gig  and  a  strong  trotting- 
horse.  With  Fettes  he  was  on  terms  of  inti- 
macy; indeed,  their  relative  positions  called  for 
some  community  of  life;  and  when  subjects  were 
scarce  the  pair  would  drive  far  into  the  country 
in  Macfarlane's  gig,  visit  and  desecrate  some  lonely 
graveyard,  and  return  before  dawn  with  their 
booty  to  the  door  of  the  dissecting-room. 

On  that  particular  morning  Macfarlane  arrived 
somewhat  earlier  than  his  wont.  Fettes  heard  him, 
and  met  him  on  the  stairs,  told  him  his  story,  and 
showed  him  the  cause  of  his  alarm.  Macfarlane 
examined  the  marks  on  her  body. 

"  Yes,"  he  said  with  a  nod,  "  it  looks  fishy." 

"  Well,  what  should  I  do?  "  asked  Fettes. 

"  Do  ?  "  repeated  the  other.  "  Do  you  want  to 
do  anything?  Least  said  soonest  mended,  I  should 
say." 

"  Some  one  else  might  recognise  her,"  objected 
Fettes.  "  She  was  as  well  known  as  the  Castle 
Rock." 

"  We  '11  hope  not,"  said  Macfarlane,  "  and  if 
anybody  does  —  well,  you  did  n't,  don't  you  see, 
and  there's  an  end.    The  fact  is,  this  has  been 


382     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

going  on  too  long.     Stir  up  the  mud,  and  you  '11 

get  K into  the  most  unholy  trouble ;    you  '11 

be  in  a  shocking  box  yourself.  So  will  I,  if  you 
come  to  that.  I  should  like  to  know  how  any  one 
of  us  would  look,  or  what  the  devil  we  should 
have  to  say  for  ourselves,  in  any  Christian  witness- 
box.  For  me,  you  know  there  '$  one  thing  certain 
—  that,  practically  speaking,  all  our  subjects  have 
been  murdered.,, 

"  Macfarlane !  "  cried  Fettes. 

"  Come  now !  "  sneered  the  other.  "As  if  you 
had  n't  suspected  it  yourself !  " 

"  Suspecting  is  one  thing " 

"  And  proof  another.  Yes,  I  know ;  and  I  'm 
as  sorry  as  you  are  this  should  have  come  here," 
tapping  the  body  with  his  cane.  "  The  next  best 
thing  for  me  is  not  to  recognise  it ;  and,"  he  added 
coolly,  "  I  don't.  You  may,  if  you  please.  I  don't 
dictate,  but  I  think  a  man  of  the  world  would  do 

as  I  do ;  and  I  may  add,  I  fancy  that  is  what  K 

would  look  for  at  our  hands.  The  question  is, 
Why  did  he  choose  us  two  for  his  assistants  ?  And 
I  answer,  because  he  did  n't  want  old  wives." 

This  was  the  tone  of  all  others  to  affect  the  mind 
of  a  lad  like  Fettes.  He  agreed  to  imitate  Mac- 
farlane. The  body  of  the  unfortunate  girl  was 
duly  dissected,  and  no  one  remarked  or  appeared 
to  recognise  her. 

One  afternoon,  when  his  day's  work  was  over, 
Fettes  dropped  into  a  popular  tavern  and  found 
Macfarlane  sitting  with  a  stranger.  This  was  a 
small  man,  very  pale  and  dark,  with  coal-black 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    383 

eyes.  The  cut  of  his  features  gave  a  promise  of 
intellect  and  refinement  which  was  but  feebly  real- 
ised in  his  manners,  for  he  proved,  upon  a  nearer 
acquaintance,  coarse,  vulgar,  and  stupid.  He  ex- 
ercised, however,  a  very  remarkable  control  over 
Macfarlane ;  issued  orders  like  the  Great  Bashaw ; 
became  inflamed  at  the  least  discussion  or  delay, 
and  commented  rudely  on  the  servility  with  which 
he  was  obeyed.  This  most  offensive  person  took 
a  fancy  to  Fettes  on  the  spot,  plied  him  with  drinks, 
and  honoured  him  with  unusual  confidences  on  his 
past  career.  If  a  tenth  part  of  what  he  confessed 
were  true,  he  was  a  very  loathsome  rogue;  and 
the  lad's  vanity  was  tickled  by  the  attention  of  so 
experienced  a  man. 

"  I  'm  a  pretty  bad  fellow  myself,"  the  stranger 
remarked,  "  but  Macfarlane  is  the  boy  —  Toddy 
Macfarlane  I  call  him.  Toddy,  order  your  friend 
another  glass."  Or  it  might  be,  "  Toddy,  you 
jump  up  and  shut  the  door."  "  Toddy  hates  me," 
he  said  again.     "  Oh,  yes,  Toddy,  you  do !  " 

"  Don't  you  call  me  that  confounded  name," 
growled  Macfarlane. 

"  Hear  him !  Did  you  ever  see  the  lads  play 
knife?  He  would  like  to  do  that  all  over  my 
body,"  remarked  the  stranger. 

"  We  medicals  have  a  better  way  than  that," 
said  Fettes.  "  When  we  dislike  a  dead  friend  of 
ours,  we  dissect  him." 

Macfarlane  looked  up  sharply,  as  though  this 
jest  were  scarcely  to  his  mind. 

The  afternoon  passed.    Gray,  for  that  was  the 


384    THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

stranger's  name,  invited  Fettes  to  join  them  at 
dinner,  ordered  a  feast  so  sumptuous  that  the 
tavern  was  thrown  in  commotion,  and  when  all 
was  done  commanded  Macfarlane  to  settle  the 
bill.  It  was  late  before  they  separated;  the  man 
Gray  was  incapably  drunk.  Macfarlane,  sobered 
by  his  fury,  chewed  the  cud  of  the  money  he  had 
been  forced  to  squander  and  the  slights  he  had 
been  obliged  to  swallow.  Fettes,  with  various 
liquors  singing  in  his  head,  returned  home  with 
devious  footsteps  and  a  mind  entirely  in  abeyance. 
Next  day  Macfarlane  was  absent  from  the  class, 
and  Fettes  smiled  to  himself  as  he  imagined  him 
still  squiring  the  intolerable  Gray  from  tavern  to 
tavern.  As  soon  as  the  hour  of  liberty  had  struck 
he  posted  from  place  to  place  in  quest  of  his  last 
night's  companions.  He  could  find  them,  how- 
ever, nowhere;  so  returned  early  to  his  rooms, 
went  early  to  bed,  and  slept  the  sleep  of  the  just. 

At  four  in  the  morning  he  was  awakened  by 
the  well-known  signal.  Descending  to  the  door, 
he  was  filled  with  astonishment  to  find  Macfarlane 
with  his  gig,  and  in  the  gig  one  of  those  long 
and  ghastly  packages  with  which  he  was  so  well 
acquainted. 

"  What  ?  "  he  cried.  "  Have  you  been  out  alone  ? 
How  did  you  manage?  " 

But  Macfarlane  silenced  him  roughly,  bidding 
him  turn  to  business.  When  they  had  got  the 
body  up-stairs  and  laid  it  on  the  table,  Macfarlane 
made  at  first  as  if  he  were  going  away.  Then  he 
paused  and  seemed  to  hesitate;   and  then,  "You 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    385 

had  better  look  at  the  face/'  said  he,  in  tones  of 
some  constraint.  "  You  had  better/ '  he  repeated, 
as  Fettes  only  stared  at  him  in  wonder. 

"  But  where,  and  how,  and  when  did  you  come 
by  it  ?  "  cried  the  other. 

"  Look  at  the  face,"  was  the  only  answer. 

Fettes  was  staggered;  strange  doubts  assailed 
him.  He  looked  from  the  young  doctor  to  the 
body,  and  then  back  again.  At  last,  with  a  start, 
he  did  as  he  was  bidden.  He  had  almost  expected 
the  sight  that  met  his  eyes,  and  yet  the  shock  was 
cruel.  To  see,  fixed  in  the  rigidity  of  death  and 
naked  on  that  coarse  layer  of  sack-cloth,  the  man 
whom  he  had  left  well  clad  and  full  of  meat  and 
sin  upon  the  threshold  of  a  tavern,  awoke,  even 
in  the  thoughtless  Fettes,  some  of  the  terrors  of 
the  conscience.  It  was  a  eras  tibi  which  re-echoed 
in  his  soul,  that  two  whom  he  had  known  should 
have  come  to  lie  upon  these  icy  tables.  Yet 
these  were  only  secondary  thoughts.  His  first 
concern  regarded  Wolfe.  Unprepared  for  a  chal- 
lenge so  momentous,  he  knew  not  how  to  look 
his  comrade  in  the  face.  He  durst  not  meet  his 
eye,  and  he  had  neither  words  nor  voice  at  his 
command. 

It  was  Macfarlane  himself  who  made  the  first 
advance.  He  came  up  quietly  behind  and  laid  his 
hand  gently  but  firmly  on  the  other's  shoulder. 

"  Richardson,"  said  he,  "  may  have  the  head." 

Now  Richardson  was  a  student  who  had  long 
been  anxious  for  that  portion  of  the  human  sub- 
ject to  dissect.     There  was  no  answer,  and  the 

«5 


386     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

murderer  resumed :  "  Talking  of  business,  you  must 
pay  me;  your  accounts,  you  see,  must  tally." 

Fettes  found  a  voice,  the  ghost  of  his  own :  "  Pay 
you !  "  he  cried.    "  Pay  you  for  that  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes,  of  course  you  must.  By  all  means 
and  on  every  possible  account,  you  must,"  returned 
the  other.  "  I  dare  not  give  it  for  nothing,  you 
dare  not  take  it  for  nothing ;  it  would  compromise 
us  both.  This  is  another  case  like  Jane  Galbraith's. 
The  more  things  are  wrong  the  more  we  must  act 

as  if  all  were  right.    Where  does  old  K keep 

his  money?  " 

"  There,"  answered  Fettes  hoarsely,  pointing  to 
a  cupboard  in  the  corner. 

"  Give  me  the  key,  then,"  said  the  other,  calmly, 
holding  out  his  hand. 

There  was  an  instant's  hesitation,  and  the  die 
was  cast.  Macfarlane  could  not  suppress  a  ner- 
vous twitch,  the  infinitesimal  mark  of  an  immense 
relief,  as  he  felt  the  key  between  his  fingers.  He 
opened  the  cupboard,  brought  out  pen  and  ink  and 
a  paper-book  that  stood  in  one  compartment,  and 
separated  from  the  funds  in  a  drawer  a  sum  suit- 
able to  the  occasion. 

"  Now,  look  here,"  he  said,  "  there  is  the  pay- 
ment made  —  first  proof  of  your  good  faith :  first 
step  to  your  security.  You  have  now  to  clinch  it 
by  a  second.  Enter  the  payment  in  your  book, 
and  then  you  for  your  part  may  defy  the  devil." 

The  next  few  seconds  were  for  Fettes  an  agony 
of  thought;  but  in  balancing  his  terrors  it  was 
the  most  immediate  that  triumphed.    Any  future 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    387 

difficulty  seemed  almost  welcome  if  he  could  avoid 
a  present  quarrel  with  Macfarlane.  He  set  down 
the  candle  which  he  had  been  carrying  all  this 
time,  and  with  a  steady  hand  entered  the  date, 
the  nature,  and  the  amount  of  the  transaction. 

"  And  now,"  said  Macfarlane,  "  it 's  only  fair 
that  you  should  pocket  the  lucre.  I  Ve  had  my 
share  already.  By  the  bye,  when  a  man  of  the 
world  falls  into  a  bit  of  luck,  has  a  few  shillings 
extra  in  his  pocket  —  I  'm  ashamed  to  speak  of 
it,  but  there  's  a  rule  of  conduct  in  the  case.  No 
treating,  no  purchase  of  expensive  class-books,  no 
squaring  of  old  debts;   borrow,  don't  lend." 

"  Macfarlane,"  began  Fettes,  still  somewhat 
hoarsely,  "  I  have  put  my  neck  in  a  halter  to 
oblige  you." 

"To  oblige  me?"  cried  Wolfe.  "Oh,  come! 
You  did,  as  near  as  I  can  see  the  matter,  what 
you  downright  had  to  do  in  self-defence.  Sup- 
pose I  got  into  trouble,  where  would  you  be? 
This  second  little  matter  flows  clearly  from  the 
first.  Mr.  Gray  is  the  continuation  of  Miss  Gal- 
braith.  You  can't  begin  and  then  stop.  If  you 
begin,  you  must  keep  on  beginning ;  that 's  the 
truth.    No  rest  for  the  wicked." 

A  horrible  sense  of  blackness  and  the  treachery 
of  fate  seized  hold  upon  the  soul  of  the  unhappy 
student. 

"  My  God !  "  he  cried,  "  but  what  have  I  done  ? 
and  when  did  I  begin?  To  be  made  a  class  as- 
sistant —  in  the  name  of  reason,  where  's  the  harm 
in  that?     Service  wanted  the  position;    Service 


388    THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

might  have  got  it.  Would  he  have  been  where 
/  am  now  ?  " 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Macfarlane,  "  what  a 
boy  you  are !  What  harm  has  come  to  you  ?  What 
harm  can  come  to  you  if  you  hold  your  tongue? 
Why,  man,  do  you  know  what  this  life  is  ?  There 
are  two  squads  of  us  —  the  lions  and  the  lambs. 
If  you  're  a  lamb,  you  '11  come  to  lie  upon  these 
tables  like  Gray  or  Jane  Galbraith ;  if  you  're  a 
lion,  you  '11  live  and  drive  a  horse  like  me,  like 
K ,  like  all  the  world  with  any  wit  or  cour- 
age.    You  're  staggered  at  the  first.     But  look  at 

K !    My  dear  fellow,  you  're  clever,  you  have 

pluck.     I  like  you,  and  K likes  you.     You 

were  born  to  lead  the  hunt;  and  I  tell  you,  on 
my  honour  and  my  experience  of  life,  three  days 
from  now  you  '11  laugh  at  all  these  scarecrows  like 
a  high-school  boy  at  a  farce/' 

And  with  that  Macfarlane  took  his  departure 
and  drove  off  up  the  wynd  in  his  gig  to  get  under 
cover  before  daylight.  Fettes  was  thus  left  alone 
with  his  regrets.  He  saw  the  miserable  peril  in 
which  he  stood  involved.  He  saw,  with  inexpres- 
sible dismay,  that  there  was  no  limit  to  his  weak- 
ness, and  that,  from  concession  to  concession,  he 
had  fallen  from  the  arbiter  of  Macfarlane's  destiny 
to  his  paid  and  helpless  accomplice.  He  would 
have  given  the  world  to  have  been  a  little  braver 
at  the  time,  but  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  he 
might  still  be  brave.  The  secret  of  Jane  Galbraith 
and  the  cursed  entry  in  the  daybook  closed  his 
mouth. 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    389 

Hours  passed;  the  class  began  to  arrive;  the 
members  of  the  unhappy  Gray  were  dealt  out  to 
one  and  to  another,  and  received  without  remark. 
Richardson  was  made  happy  with  the  head;  and 
before  the  hour  of  freedom  rang  Fettes  trembled 
with  exultation  to  perceive  how  far  they  had  al- 
ready gone  toward  safety. 

For  two  days  he  continued  to  watch,  with  in- 
creasing joy,  the  dreadful  process  of  disguise. 

On  the  third  day  Macfarlane  made  his  appear- 
ance. He  had  been  ill,  he  said;  but  he  made 
up  for  lost  time  by  the  energy  with  which  he 
directed  the  students.  To  Richardson  in  particu- 
lar he  extended  the  most  valuable  assistance  and 
advice,  and  that  student,  encouraged  by  the 
praise  of  the  demonstrator,  burned  high  with 
ambitious  hopes,  and  saw  the  medal  already  in 
his  grasp. 

Before  the  week  was  out  Macfarlane's  prophecy 
had  been  fulfilled.  Fettes  had  outlived  his  terrors 
and  had  forgotten  his  baseness.  He  began  to 
plume  himself  upon  his  courage,  and  had  so  ar- 
ranged the  story  in  his  mind  that  he  could  look 
back  on  these  events  with  an  unhealthy  pride.  Of 
his  accomplice  he  saw  but  little.  They  met,  of 
course,  in  the  business  of  the  class;   they  received 

their  orders  together  from  Mr.  K .    At  times 

they  had  a  word  or  two  in  private,  and  Macfar- 
lane was  from  first  to  last  particularly  kind  and 
jovial.  But  it  was  plain  that  he  avoided  any  ref- 
erence to  their  common  secret;  and  even  when 
Fettes  whispered  to  him  that  he  had  cast  in  his 


390     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

lot   with   the  lions   and   forsworn  the  lambs,   he 
only  signed  to  him  smilingly  to  hold  his  peace. 
At  length  an  occasion  arose  which  threw  the 

pair  once  more  into  a  closer  union.     Mr.  K 

was  again  short  of  subjects;  pupils  were  eager, 
and  it  was  a  part  of  this  teacher's  pretensions  to 
be  always  well  supplied.  At  the  same  time  there 
came  the  news  of  a  burial  in  the  rustic  graveyard 
of  Glencorse.  "Time  has  little  changed  the  place 
in  question.  It  stood  then,  as  now,  upon  a  cross- 
road, out  of  call  of  human  habitations,  and  buried 
fathom  deep  in  the  foliage  of  six  cedar  trees.  The 
cries  of  the  sheep  upon  the  neighbouring  hills,  the 
streamlets  upon  either  hand,  one  loudly  singing 
among  pebbles,  the  other  dripping  furtively  from 
pond  to  pond,  the  stir  of  the  wind  in  mountainous 
old  flowering  chestnuts,  and  once  in  seven  days 
the  voice  of  the  bell  and  the  old  tunes  of  the  pre- 
centor, were  the  only  sounds  that  disturbed  the 
silence  around  the  rural  church.  The  Resurrec- 
tion Man  —  to  use  a  by-name  of  the  period  —  was 
not  to  be  deterred  by  any  of  the  sanctities  of  cus- 
tomary piety.  It  was  part  of  his  trade  to  despise 
and  desecrate  the  scrolls  and  trumpets  of  old  tombs, 
the  paths  worn  by  the  feet  of  worshippers  and 
mourners,  and  the  offerings  and  the  inscriptions 
of  bereaved  affection.  To  rustic  neighbourhoods, 
where  love  is  more  than  commonly  tenacious,  and 
where  some  bonds  of  blood  or  fellowship  unite 
the  entire  society  of  a  parish,  the  body-snatcher, 
far  from  being  repelled  by  natural  respect,  was 
attracted  by  the  ease  and  safety  of  the  task.    To 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    391 

bodies  that  had  been  laid  in  earth,  in  joyful  ex- 
pectation of  a  far  different  awakening,  there  came 
that  hasty,  lamp-lit,  terror-haunted  resurrection  of 
the  spade  and  mattock.  The  coffin  was  forced,  the 
cerements  torn,  and  the  melancholy  relics,  clad  in 
sackcloth,  after  being  rattled  for  hours  on  moon- 
less by-ways,  were  at  length  exposed  to  uttermost 
indignities  before  a  class  of  gaping  boys. 

Somewhat  as  two  vultures  may  swoop  upon  a 
dying  lamb,  Fettes  and  Macfarlane  were  to  be  let 
loose  upon  a  grave  in  that  green  and  quiet  resting- 
place.  The  wife  of  a  farmer,  a  woman  who  had 
lived  for  sixty  years,  and  been  known  for  nothing 
but  good  butter  and  a  godly  conversation,  was  to 
be  rooted  from  her  grave  at  midnight  and  carried, 
dead  and  naked,  to  that  far-away  city  that  she 
had  always  honoured  with  her  Sunday's  best;  the 
place  beside  her  family  was  to  be  empty  till  the 
crack  of  doom ;  her  innocent  and  almost  venerable 
members  to  be  exposed  to  that  last  curiosity  of  the 
anatomist. 

Late  one  afternoon  the  pair  set  forth,  well 
wrapped  in  cloaks  and  furnished  with  a  formid- 
able bottle.  It  rained  without  remission  —  a  cold, 
dense,  lashing  rain.  Now  and  again  there  blew 
a  puff  of  wind,  but  these  sheets  of  falling  water 
kept  it  down.  Bottle  and  all,  it  was  a  sad  and 
silent  drive  as  far  as  Penicuik,  where  they  were 
to  spend  the  evening.  They  stopped  once,  to  hide 
their  implements  in  a  thick  bush  not  far  from  the 
churchyard,  and  once  again  at  the  Fisher's  Tryst, 
to  have  a  toast  before  the  kitchen  fire  and  vary 


392     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

their  nips  of  whisky  with  a  glass  of  ale.  When 
they  reached  their  journey's  end  the  gig  was 
housed,  the  horse  was  fed  and  comforted,  and  the 
two  young  doctors  in  a  private  room  sat  down  to 
the  best  dinner  and  the  best  wine  the  house  af- 
forded. The  lights,  the  fire,  the  beating  rain  upon 
the  window,  the  cold,  incongruous  work  that  lay 
before  them,  added  zest  to  their  enjoyment  of  the 
meal.  With  every  glass  their  cordiality  increased. 
Soon  Macfarlane  handed  a  little  pile  of  gold  to 
his  companion. 

"  A  compliment,"  he  said.     "  Between  friends 

these  little  d d  accommodations  ought  to  fly 

like  pipe-lights." 

Fettes  pocketed  the  money,  and  applauded  the 
sentiment  to  the  echo.  "  You  are  a  philosopher," 
he  cried.     "  I  was  an  ass  till  I  knew  you.     You 

and  K between  you,  by  the  Lord  Harry !  but 

you  '11  make  a  man  of  me." 

"  Of  course,  we  shall,"  applauded  Macfarlane. 
"  A  man  ?  I  tell  you,  it  required  a  man  to  back 
me  up  the  other  morning.  There  are  some  big, 
brawling,  forty-year-old  cowards  who  would  have 

turned  sick  at  the  look  of  the  d d  thing;   but 

not  you  —  you  kept  your  head.    I  watched  you." 

"  Well,  and  why  not  ?  "  Fettes  thus  vaunted 
himself.  "  It  was  no  affair  of  mine.  There  was 
nothing  to  gain  on  the  one  side  but  disturbance, 
and  on  the  other  I  could  count  on  your  gratitude, 
don't  you  see?"  And  he  slapped  his  pocket  till 
the  gold  pieces  rang. 

Macfarlane  somehow   felt  a  certain  touch  of 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    393 

alarm  at  these  unpleasant  words.  He  may  have 
regretted  that  he  had  taught  his  young  companion 
so  successfully,  but  he  had  no  time  to  interfere, 
for  the  other  noisily  continued  in  this  boastful 
strain : 

"  The  great  thing  is  not  to  be  afraid.  Now, 
between  you  and  me,  I  don't  want  to  hang  — 
that 's  practical ;  but  for  all  cant,  Macfarlane,  I 
was  born  with  a  contempt.  Hell,  God,  Devil, 
right,  wrong,  sin,  crime,  and  all  the  old  gallery 
of  curiosities  —  they  may  frighten  boys,  but  men 
of  the  world,  like  you  and  me,  despise  them. 
Here  's  to  the  memory  of  Gray !  " 

It  was  by  this  time  growing  somewhat  late. 
The  gig,  according  to  order,  was  brought  round 
to  the  door  with  both  lamps  brightly  shining,  and 
the  young  men  had  to  pay  their  bill  and  take  the 
road.  They  announced  that  they  were  bound  for 
Peebles,  and  drove  in  that  direction  till  they  were 
clear  of  the  last  houses  of  the  town;  then,  ex- 
tinguishing the  lamps,  returned  upon  their  course, 
and  followed  a  by-road  toward  Glencorse.  There 
was  no  sound  but  that  of  their  own  passage,  and 
the  incessant,  strident  pouring  of  the  rain.  It  was 
pitch  dark ;  here  and  there  a  white  gate  or  a  white 
stone  in  the  wall  guided  them  for  a  short  space 
across  the  night;  but  for  the  most  part  it  was  at 
a  foot  pace,  and  almost  groping,  that  they  picked 
their  way  through  that  resonant  blackness  to  their 
solemn  and  isolated  destination.  In  the  sunken 
woods  that  traverse  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
burying-ground  the  last  glimmer  failed  them,  and 


394    THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

it  became  necessary  to  kindle  a  match  and  reillu- 
mine  one  of  the  lanterns  of  the  gig.  Thus,  under 
the  dripping  trees,  and  environed  by  huge  and 
moving  shadows,  they  reached  the  scene  of  their 
unhallowed  labours. 

They  were  both  experienced  in  such  affairs,  and 
powerful  with  the  spade ;  and  they  had  scarce  been 
twenty  minutes  at  their  task  before  they  were  re- 
warded by  a  dull  rattle  on  the  coffin  lid.  At  the 
same  moment  Macfarlane,  having  hurt  his  hand 
upon  a  stone,  flung  it  carelessly  above  his  head. 
The  grave,  in  which  they  now  stood  almost  to  the 
shoulders,  was  close  to  the  edge  of  the  plateau 
of  the  graveyard;  and  the  gig  lamp  had  been 
propped,  the  better  to  illuminate  their  labours, 
against  a  tree,  and  on  the  immediate  verge  of  the 
steep  bank  descending  to  the  stream.  Chance  had 
taken  a  sure  aim  with  the  stone.  Then  came  a 
clang  of  broken  glass;  night  fell  upon  them; 
sounds  alternately  dull  and  ringing  announced  the 
bounding  of  the  lantern  down  the  bank,  and  its 
occasional  collision  with  the  trees.  A  stone  or 
two,  which  it  had  dislodged  in  its  descent,  rattled 
behind  it  into  the  profundities  of  the  glen;  and 
then  silence,  like  night,  resumed  its  sway;  and 
they  might  bend  their  hearing  to  its  utmost  pitch, 
but  naught  was  to  be  heard  except  the  rain,  now 
marching  to  the  wind,  now  steadily  falling  over 
miles  of  open  country. 

They  were  so  nearly  at  an  end  of  their  abhorred 
task  that  they  judged  it  wisest  to  complete  it  in 
the  dark.     The  coffin  was  exhumed  and  broken 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER    395 

open;  the  body  inserted  in  the  dripping  sack  and 
carried  between  them  to  the  gig;  one  mounted 
to  keep  it  in  its  place,  and  the  other,  taking  the 
horse  by  the  mouth,  groped  along  by  wall  and 
bush  until  they  reached  the  wider  road  by  the 
Fisher's  Tryst.  Here  was  a  faint,  diffused  ra- 
diancy, which  they  hailed  like  daylight;  by  that 
they  pushed  the  horse  to  a  good  pace  and  began 
to  rattle  along  merrily  in  the  direction  of  the 
town. 

They  had  both  been  wetted  to  the  skin  during 
their  operations,  and  now,  as  the  gig  jumped 
among  the  deep  ruts,  the  thing  that  stood  propped 
between  them  fell  now  upon  one  and  now  upon 
the  other.  At  every  repetition  of  the  horrid  con- 
tact each  instinctively  repelled  it  with  the  greater 
haste;  and  the  process,  natural  although  it  was, 
began  to  tell  upon  the  nerves  of  the  companions. 
Macfarlane  made  some  ill-favoured  jest  about  the 
farmer's  wife,  but  it  came  hollowly  from  his  lips, 
and  was  allowed  to  drop  in  silence.  Still  their 
unnatural  burthen  bumped  from  side  to  side;  and 
now  the  head  would  be  laid,  as  if  in  confidence, 
upon  their  shoulders,  and  now  the  drenching  sack- 
cloth would  flap  icily  about  their  faces.  A  creep- 
ing chill  began  to  possess  the  soul  of  Fettes.  He 
peered  at  the  bundle,  and  it  seemed  somehow  larger 
than  at  first.  All  over  the  country-side,  and  from 
every  degree  of  distance,  the  farm  dogs  accom- 
panied their  passage  with  tragic  ululations;  and 
it  grew  and  grew  upon  his  mind  that  some  un- 
natural miracle  had  been  accomplished,  that  some 


396     THE    BODY-SNATCHER 

nameless  change  had  befallen  the  dead  body,  and 
that  it  was  in  fear  of  their  unholy  burthen  that 
the  dogs  were  howling. 

"  For  God's  sake,"  said  he,  making  a  great  effort 
to  arrive  at  speech,  "  for  God's  sake,  let 's  have  a 
light!" 

Seemingly  Macfarlane  was  affected  in  the  same 
direction ;  for,  though  he  made  no  reply,  he  stopped 
the  horse,  passed  the  reins  to  his  companion,  got 
down,  and  proceeded  to  kindle  the  remaining  lamp. 
They  had  by  that  time  got  no  farther  than  the 
cross-road  down  to  Auchenclinny.  The  rain  still 
poured  as  though  the  deluge  were  returning,  and 
it  was  no  easy  matter  to  make  a  light  in  such  a 
world  of  wet  and  darkness.  When  at  last  the 
flickering  blue  flame  had  been  transferred  to  the 
wick  and  began  to  expand  and  clarify,  and  shed 
a  wide  circle  of  misty  brightness  round  the  gig, 
it  became  possible  for  the  two  young  men  to  see 
each  other  and  the  thing  they  had  along  with 
them.  The  rain  had  moulded  the  rough  sacking 
to  the  outlines  of  the  body  underneath;  the  head 
was  distinct  from  the  trunk,  the  shoulders  plainly 
modelled;  something  at  once  spectral  and  human 
riveted  their  eyes  upon  the  ghastly  comrade  of 
their  drive. 

For  some  time  Macfarlane  stood  motionless, 
holding  up  the  lamp.  A  nameless  dread  was 
swathed,  like  a  wet  sheet,  about  the  body,  and 
tightened  the  white  skin  upon  the  face  of  Fettes; 
a  fear  that  was  meaningless,  a  horror  of  what 
could  not  be,  kept  mounting  to  his  brain.     An- 


THE    BODY-SNATCHER     397 

other  beat  of  the  watch,  and  he  had  spoken.  But 
his  comrade  forestalled  him. 

"  That  is  not  a  woman,"  said  Macfarlane,  in  a 
hushed  voice. 

"  It  was  a  woman  when  we  put  her  in,"  whis- 
pered Fettes. 

"  Hold  that  lamp,"  said  the  other.  "  I  must  see 
her  face." 

And  as  Fettes  took  the  lamp  his  companion  un- 
tied the  fastenings  of  the  sack  and  drew  down  the 
cover  from  the  head.  The  light  fell  very  clear 
upon  the  dark,  well-moulded  features  and  smooth- 
shaven  cheeks  of  a  too  familiar  countenance,  often 
beheld  in  dreams  of  both  of  these  young  men.  A 
wild  yell  rang  up  into  the  night ;  each  leaped  from 
his  own  side  into  the  roadway;  the  lamp  fell, 
broke,  and  was  extinguished;  and  the  horse,  ter- 
rified by  this  unusual  commotion,  bounded  and 
went  off  toward  Edinburgh  at  a  gallop,  bearing 
along  with  it,  sole  occupant  of  the  gig,  the  body 
of  the  dead  and  long-dissected  Gray. 


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